Photo by TaylaLyell1979
6. The cashless economy and virtual currency
Very little money exists in the Star Trek universe, unless you happen to make friends with a couple Ferengi. For the rare time when a citizen of the vaguely socialist and clearly utopian United Federation of Planets should happen to not already have everything they could want, Federation credits were there to cover the bar tab.
While cash still exists in the modern world, most people would be surprised just how cashless the economy has in fact become. According to a 2013 study commissioned by MasterCard, almost 80% of consumer spending is done without cash. Even in a developing economy such as Brazil, nearly 60% of transactions are performed without exchanging physical currency.
The Federation credit does not ever appear to be backed by cash, gold or anything else that we might think of as hard currency. In this sense, Star Trek also predicts the arrival of virtual currency. It’s a fair bet that more than a couple Bitcoin users have watched a few episode of Star Trek at some point in their lives.
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