We are often told that the move towards a cashless society is ‘natural progress’, but there is seldom reference to the powerful groups that are vigorously pushing for it. What happens when physical money is replaced completely by digital transactions? In the great battle for global monopolization, different ‘watchers’ are trying to capture and hoard data. Google has search patterns revealing your desires, fetishes and intellectual interests. Facebook has a treasure trove of its users’ special moments and projections of vanity. Yet, if we really want to see what a person is motivated to act upon in society, we should examine their payments data. In ‘Cloudmoney’, Brett Scott uncovers a long-established lobbying infrastructure set up by an alliance of partners, including financial institutions, governments and international agencies, to wage a covert cold war against cash.