{"id":163,"date":"2026-04-10T14:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.moneyscapes.com\/?p=163"},"modified":"2026-04-10T14:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T14:40:14","slug":"the-disappearance-of-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/the-disappearance-of-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"The disappearance of cash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Today only 8% of transactions are conducted using cash. The remainder is done through digital means. This won\u2019t come as a surprise as the bills you pay and most purchases you make are likely through an online bank or card payment. Cash is becoming less and less important. While this 8% will only continue to decrease, what does it mean for the intrinsic value of money?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In countries like New Zealand where card payments are even more popular, 98% of transactions are carried out using electronic or card payment. Cash is becoming extinct.<strong> Today the main reasons we need cash are when we want to split a pizza with friends and everyone has to chip in $10.<\/strong> However, applications are solving this problem too. Soon cash will be a nuisance in every regard.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, if cash is only contributing 8% of our spending what is in the bank vaults? The reality is that there is not a lot in there. <strong>The majority of banking today is based on the changing of numbers from one account to another. In the past currencies used to be based on a gold standard<\/strong>. This meant that the value of a currency used to be based on some gold reserves. Today that is not the case. <strong>Today most currencies are based on fiat money.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fiat money means there is no reserve that creates the wealth, the value of a currency is decided by a government<\/strong>. Fiat means \u201cit shall be\u201d in Latin. Many describe this as a faith-based currency. That we must simply trust our government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, if everyone went to the bank and took out their savings at the same time, there would not be enough money there. This is why large transactions can take a couple of days to process, the bank doesn\u2019t actually have the money. <strong>Most banks will keep around 10% or less of the total amount they technically \u201chave\u201d in the bank.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This means a number of things for the average consumer. One, don\u2019t become a bank robber. Two, don\u2019t decide to put your money under the mattress, it is still best kept in a bank account. Three, keep an eye on cryptocurrencies because there may be an alternative to your mattress in the future.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today only 8% of transactions are conducted using cash. The remainder is done through digital means. This won\u2019t come as a surprise as the bills you pay and most purchases you make are likely through an online bank or card payment. Cash is becoming less and less important. While this 8% will only continue to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun-facts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.money-scape.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}