The nature of e-money – invisible, lightning quick, cheap, globally penetrating – is likely to produce indelible underground economies, a worry way beyond mere laundering of drug money … Para-currencies will flourish as the network culture flourishes. An electonic matrix is destined to be an out-back of hardy underwire economies. The Net is so amicable to electronic cash that once established interstitially in the Net’s links, e-money is probably ineradicable.
Predictor: Kelly, Kevin
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World,” Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired magazine, writes: ”The nature of e-money – invisible, lightning quick, cheap, globally penetrating – is likely to produce indelible underground economies, a worry way beyond mere laundering of drug money. In the Net-world, where a global economy is rooted in distributed knowledge and decentralized control, e-money is not an option but a necessity. Para-currencies will flourish as the network culture flourishes. An electonic matrix is destined to be an out-back of hardy underwire economies. The Net is so amicable to electronic cash that once established interstitially in the Net’s links, e-money is probably ineradicable.”
Biography:Kevin Kelly was the author of the book “Out of Control” and the first executive editor of the highly influential Wired magazine. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: E-cash
Name of publication: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World
Title, headline, chapter name: E-Money
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 227
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty