Money: 2115

The next 100 years of money conceptualization, creation, transfer, and innovation will be mind-blowing.

What will currency look like in 100 years?

I can’t begin to speculate. The only certain answer is that it will look almost nothing like the currency we know and use around the world today.

Now, ask the same question 100 years prior, fresh on the heels of the creation of our Federal Reserve, and I suppose a majority of answers would be mitigated by current reality. This reality is generally one of centralized powers and centralized currencies that have been dressed in endless colors, coins, and names.

The possibility of currency decentralization, competition, tailored design, and iteration, was not in the realm of possibility for someone from 1914 (however, not all was lost…Charlie Chaplin introduced The Tramp to movie-goers across the nation).

All this to say I think we are alive at a great time.

At this very specific, unique moment in human history, the confluence of advancements in information technologies, design, and finance are leading to some of the most exciting developments in currency since money was abstracted from the physical goods and services humans first exchanged.

Money has been one great experiment after another; though they follow a similar historical pattern of control, manipulation, failure, and re-emergence.

But with the recent developments in the relatively uncharted waters of digital and crypto-currencies, we’re been shown a bright future where currencies are better designed, highly competitive, well suited for their specific tasks.

We’re shown the possibility of what a world can look like when currencies can just as easily respond to the needs of a populace as it can facilitate and implement the imaginings of its creators. This reality—the this-is-actually-talked-about-in-public-and-accepted-as-part-of-daily-life reality—is beyond mind-blowing.

This medium (and I would argue it is a creative medium) will evolve at an ever-increasing rate; more change occurring in the next ten years than occurred in the prior ten thousand.

What a great time to be alive indeed.