This episode is all about bitcoin. Will it be the currency of the future? Who’s trying to capitalise on the legal loopholes of cryptocurrencies? And is it possible to make mining them more green.
You may have imagined the blockchain would lead to a world without governments or institutions veryifying transactions, research shows that it probably won’t.
An illegal money changer holds bond notes outside a bank in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.
Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo
Years of political instability and economic mismanagement under the rule of ZANU-PF have left Zimbabwe’s financial system in chaos. The country is living on borrowed time and borrowed money.
Being financially literate is not as simple as applying a set of skills.
Shutterstock
The federal government is trying to make Australians more financially literate, but it’s using a definition that ignores many political, economic and cultural factors.
Despite its name, cryptocurrency isn’t just money. It could also be debt or equity and so it should be regulated and taxed in the same way as other finance.
The new A$10 banknote, part of a series. The next new banknote to be released will be the A$50, planned for 2018.
Reserve Bank of Australia
There’s a raging debate in South Africa about the role of its central bank. This is inevitable given that so much is changing in the world of central banking and in economic life.
The RBA found Australians are increasingly using cards instead of cash for in-person payments.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Currency first hit the scene thousands of years ago. An anthropologist explains the early origins and uses of money – and how archaeological finds fill in our picture of the past.
A new study of how frequently certain words were used between 1800 and 2000 shows that political power as a guiding principle is more important than money and religious belief.