The time frame is unclear, but eventually nanotechnology will allow exact copies of more or less anything. This will make cash, gold and many other current measures of wealth nearly worthless.
Somehow, institutions will need to be established to keep track of everyone's net worth. What happens when crackers manage successful attacks on these? Shudder.
nanotech might make coined & printed money obsolete, but I disagree about gold & other "precious" metals. There is a world of difference in the energy requirements to do chemical transformation and nuclear ones. So yes, a dollar bill can be duplicated by rearranging atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorous and oxygen....but to make gold you're going to need gold atoms, which is to say, gold.
We shall need independently certified wealth (Score:1)
Somehow, institutions will need to be established to keep track of everyone's net worth. What happens when crackers manage successful attacks on these? Shudder.
Re:We shall need independently certified wealth (Score:2)