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'Cash doesn't crash'

Cashlessness doesn't actually limit crime but it does limit access to the levers required to commit large white-collar crimes

Cloud-money
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Cloud-money: Cash, cards, crypto and the War for our Wallets; Author: Brett Scott; Publisher: Penguin; Price: Rs 799

Devangshu Datta
In 2018, Sweden’s central bank released a paper, “If Crisis or War Comes”, encouraging citizens to hold physical cash to handle contingencies like war with Russia, or catastrophic weather. Since Sweden is the world’s most cashless nation, the advocacy was a surprise but the Riksbank was pointing out situations digital cash cannot handle.

In making a passionate case for retention of physical cash, Cloud Money deploys that argument of crisis/war, and adds others. Parts of the book read like an anarchist manifesto. But it is worth stepping past knee-jerk prejudices to consider the underlying rationality of some of the arguments.

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