 Hi, I'm Ross Dawson, a futurist together here with Gerd Leonard, my friend and fellow futurist. And having some conversations today about the future of money. And it's a long time since we bartered with shells and so on, the whole growth of currencies, but now that seems to be opening out in a big, big way. So, Gerd, what do you see in the future of money? Well, five years ago when I was still doing work in the music business and Facebook came along, then we were joking, lots of people were joking, saying, you know, I wish I could pay my landlord as a band with Facebook money, with Facebook, right? And this is actually becoming possible now. I mean, Facebook credits will be exactly this. It's starting an alternate currency, in my view, may eventually be more important than the dollar, than the US dollar. I mean, this is a global currency that you can spend on stuff that you can buy on Facebook, including real-life tickets, airplane tickets, cars, and so on. But you can also earn it. This is the important part, right? So if you're a good Facebook guy and you're uploading stuff and you're sharing, people can give you credits, right? This is the thing that bloggers have always dreamed of, getting paid by the audience, right? So that's Facebook credits and we have virtual currencies and we have Cochino and Flatter and so on. So we're looking at a world where it's probably going to be not the coins and bills in our wallet, but that's going to be gone, the credit cards will be on the mobile phone, and there's many ways of paying each other through non-cash, right? This is going to be a very big shift also for the banks, of course. You know, a fascinating space. I mean, certainly I want to get rid of the small change in my wallet and I think it's kind of sad that in 2011 we haven't been able to do that yet, but hopefully it won't be long. Clearly one of the reasons why we're still going to keep some, I think the dollar bills will still remain, or the hundred dollar bills rather, is that people like buying illicit substances, for example, and not doing that in a traceable way. But obviously one of the most interesting things just recently has been Bitcoin and its rise, particularly because it's basically untraceable. And there are some ways in which you can pack it sniff to be able to see some of the transactions, but basically Bitcoin is a completely open way of exchanging financial money or without it being seen by governments. And that's a critical point because governments still want to make control over their currencies. They still regulate alternative currencies and barter systems in order to be able to tax transactions. So if you want to see the rise of these basically cryptographic financial systems, that completely changes the landscape, or might completely change the landscape. I mean if we're looking at the fact that the other three billion in the developing countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, and so on, they're all coming online now and they're going to use their mobile phones to go online primarily. The mobile phone is the bank and they're called the unbanked for a reason, right? Yes. But there are no banks and many Africans don't have banks, right? And they don't have power to use a computer. So the mobile phone becomes the bank, right? And this is going to be three billion people using mobile phone as banking. And then we're going to be sucked into that as well. So that's a huge shift towards that part of the equation. But also what does money actually mean and who gets paid for what? I mean these kind of things will be completely turned upside down. I think in the future we will pay people not to work, right? Because they can be more beneficial to us as a whole as a society if they're not working in the sense of getting a regular job, right? So it will be paid to pontificate, for example, or to create things or to just think about things like academics do today. Paid by who? Paid by who? Paid by us, by the users, right? Directly through, for example, a credit-based system through attributing like a tiny piece of my equation but then there's a million people doing that, right? So you'll use social networks to fund group efforts. Well, I suppose that's the micro-payments story and I think it's been interesting where if you look from the late 90s when people were talking micro-payments, strictly micro-payments for content that that was a compelling story. So far we still haven't seen that. I still think the jury's out. It still is a compelling story. I still believe there is the potential for micro-payments yet we still haven't seen the evidence that this is going to really happen. You need huge volume for this, right? Facebook will have a billion users by the end of the year. QQ, which is the biggest Chinese service, already has 700 million. They also have a billion by the end of the year. They will all go public, right? These companies, Tencent and so on. So what will happen then is that these companies can create ways of payment and micro-currencies, right? They'll become global ways of generating this way. So far we haven't had enough juice in the network to say a ban can go and say I need $50,000 for the next record. That just wasn't possible with some exceptions like Kickstarter and so on. But by and large not possible. But when you have 2 billion people connected, right, and you have a fellowship, you can raise money in this way and you can also turn what's called social capital into real money, right? There's a conversion process. Yeah, it's interesting. I suppose there is in fact a continuum between the crowdfunding models of Kickstarter or Indiegogo and so on with micro-payments. I think they're both people contributing to see something happen they want. But on slightly different scales. Obviously Kickstarter or the crowdfunding platforms, you have a smaller number contributing more. The micro-payments, it's hopefully more people contributing less. There still needs to be this habit or habitual way of being able to do that. And this fact, for example, being able to go to a particular website page, you charge two cents to visit that page, and that just becomes part of your everyday. Clearly, and in terms of mindset of getting there. Yeah, I mean, the habit change is a huge challenge, especially for Europeans. I mean, developing countries don't have a problem with changing habits, because they're moving like this. But we do, because we're saturated, right? So there's a whole bunch of things that need to happen for that first. But I think in general, if you look at what's the very definition of money and payment and currency will substantially change the next five to ten years as a consequence of technology. I mean, the fact that I can be tracked by transactions is a big issue already. But the way of cloaking that or safeguarding that is being invented right now, because it's needed for everything, not just for money. And of course, money, the other thing is money is content, right? And all content is moving into the cloud. So films, television, and money is moving into the cloud. So that's inevitable. So if you're in the banking business or insurance or loans or whatever, I think that you have to face reality that money is going to be in the cloud as well. Well, thanks for tuning in. You can visit Ross's site. What's your site? RossDawson.com. Or just search for Ross Dawson. Okay. And mine is mediafuturist.com. And thanks for tuning in and listening to us delivering our diatribes. Thanks.