There is no cash in SR. Everything is bought and paid for with a credstick. You own personal one or a certified. How is a certified credstick [B][I][U]NOT trackable? Ok you go to a bank transfer x amount from an account you have access to on to a certified credstick. Now you give the credstick to some one as payment or use it in some way. You can do this BECAUSE it is a CERTIFIED credstick. The bank is certifing that the amount in the credstick is there. If there is not some sort of encoded identifer from the bank I would think the forgery would be rampant. And lets not forget the inconvenience of no cash at a strip club. A lot of fun goes out the window when you don't have cash to use in interesting ways.

Just a rant. Am I even close on the certified credstick thing?

Thanos

Certified cred is tied to an account but the account is not attached to a person. It is traceable, but you can use it like cash (cash is traceable too). To stop the trace you switch the cred to underworld markers and cash the markers in as needed. And yes, cred is encoded.

In our campaign world, I choose to make the adventures a challenge to the players, and not the handling of money. I don't want my players spending any of my time or their time worrying about whether they have enough 3-nuyen certified credsticks to toss to bouncers as tips.

In order to achieve the above, I choose the following house rules:
* Johnsons and characters treat Certified Cred as if it were untraceable cash.
* Certified Cred is encrypted data, where more nuyen requires more memory or longer transfer time. It can be found in data stores, decks, credsticks, or other memory devices. It can be sent over the phone between computers, decks, and pocket secretaries, or transferred on the matrix.
* A certified credstick has lots of memory to actually hold the encrypted data, while a regular credstick has a little memory for account numbers and transaction data but also can check some biometric data (voice print, thumbprint, retinal scan, etc).
* Characters are assumed to have the certified cred they carry split over as many small certified credsticks as they find they want during the run. Tossing a 3-nuyen certified credstick to a bouncer as you enter a nightclub requires no advance planning or record keeping. Just mark 3 nuyen off your character sheet if you have low lifestyle or less.
* Any deck can split up certified cred across multiple credsticks.
* Someone could make multiple copies of a piece of certified Cred, but it would be discovered as soon as two copies reached the legitimate banking system. By agreement it never happens in our games unless the GM does it as part of an adventure.
* Players need to track how much certified cred their characters are carrying, with the rest assumed to be kept at their residence or a safehouse.

We also use Scrip from time to time, but only in the corporation that issued it or in the businesses near that corp.

One can always make life an adventure, OurTeam.

However, tracing certified cred is the same as tracing cash (no cash is untraceable). Each part has a specific code like a serial number. Neither simple nor often desirable to do so, but possible. The way to foil this is laundering or using fake identities. The Johnson's are pulling the money from fake accounts (Eastern Tea & Trading corp) and putting them in to cash accounts. What level of paranoia here depends on the game and team.

My players launder money in an abstract manner, but we've yet to complete a full game year. I imagine they will hire a syndicate accountant to do taxes for them.

Transferring money from stick to stick is simple in small denominations, simpler with certified, (simply press the tip button -and denomination if not preset- and wave the sticks, then press OK). Credsticks can hold any number and type of cred up to individual limits.

Given the prevalance of deckers, I suggest that at least some amount of cash would be preferable.

Not to mention that waving credsticks would be like slinging around credit cards today -- not a good idea in the age of identity theft.

Not to mention the irritation of losing power and not being able to conduct business.

-Siege

Identity theft is a bit harder in SR than RL, actually nearly impossible due to finger print verification for "real" level transactions, ability to verify position, and traceability, not to mention the hundreds of registries one needs to alter to override verification systems. And then the theft is only viable for a very short period. Not really worth it because you can create a false identity as easily as that.

The only thing you lose is the certified cred if some one steals the stick. And who doesn't carry more than one anyway?

Stealing cred from a stick is very hard, unless it's certified. Then it is as easy as taking cash from a wallet.

All righty, you're thinking of this the wrong way.

Lets use phone cards as an example. Let's say that you buy a prepaid phone card. You then give the card to someone, or sell it, or lose it, or whatever. Later on, that card is implicated in a case of telephone harassment. Does that mean you're automatically guilty?

Even though the card can be "traced" back to you, the actual user can't be determined. That's why it's considered untraceable.

Nowadays, prepaid cash cards can fill the same role. You may be able to track the person who put the cash on it in the first place, but that doesn't mean you can track the user. Which is perfectly fine for Joe Shadowrunner; and Mr. Johnson just has to be more careful about how he creates it. Multi-point certified credstick transfers would be effectively deniable, if not strictly "untraceable".

What Cain said.

I thought you could still get printed money.

In a couple of novels i thought they still had nuyen printed on mylar.

In the games that myself and my group play, we still use "paper" money for gratuities and bribes.

Big transactions are still made through credsticks.

If no one is using money, how many, what denomination, and what kind of credstick does everyone carry to tip your waiter, pay the ganger to watch your car, pay protection moeny for your doss?

I'd like to see certified credsticks as a cross between pre-paid phonecards, like Cain said, and bearer bonds. Certified credstick fill the role of bearer bonds in contemporary society. They don't get used to pay very often, and people will remember it when you use it at a convenience store, for instance.

Money, or "script" is, in a very Gibsonesque way, not preferable for shop-owners. It's cumbersome, risky and some will just flat out refuse to accept it. Except for corporate script, of course, issued out by a corporate, even harder to get rid of outside of a corporate compound or enclave, and only really good in stores owned and run by corporations.

One way I get around the issue of "paper money" in the games I run is by adding Kong-bucks as a currency (from the other-other cyberpunk, "He, She, and It"). Kong-bucks are the currency of the Barrens, where corp scrip will get you sneered at and waiving a credstick around will get you mugged. Kong-bucks are small, brightly colored, usually dirty, pieces of thin plastic. They look rather like what US currency is turning into, actually (and what Australian currency is today!). Kong-bucks certainly don't work downtown or in legit markets, but they are the currency of choice for "most" of Seattle in 2063.

As a GM, having a second currency can add a lot of depth to a game. Generally, I assume a 1:1 nuyen:kong-buck exchange rate, however, if there's sudden unrest in the barrens, a glut of kong-bucks occurs, as folks ditch currency for goods. For good-hearted runners, I've thought about running an adventure which centers around an evil counterfeiter who is debasing the sprawl's KB. The adventure begins something like:

Corner Noodle Stand Guy: 10 KB, sir.
Sammy: 10 kong-bucks?! You must be out of your mind. Is the bowl seasoned with orichalcum or something?
CNSG: No, sir. Times are tough. Inflation, sir.
Sammy: Inflation?
CNSG: Inflation occurs when.....*insert economics lesson*
[Ever notice how corner noodle stand guys are wiser than they seem....]

And let's not forget the word on the street coming from the shoeshinner.
(Watch Police Squad. The guy helps out Lt. Drebbin, Tommy Lasorta, Dick Clark and 4 others with carrer advice.)

If I remember correctly about the strippers, in one of the adventures, the girls had sticks hanging around their necks on chains and plastic cords. But the character (it was flavor/story text) gave her some cash anyway. I think it was a 100 bill or something.

I think that cash does exsist for tips, and quick bribes ("I don't know nothin about that." "Yeah, well maybe this will refresh your memory") but for larger transactions, cred's the way to go.

Scrip, not script. Script is something you read the lines of a play from.

I'm not sure I agree that certified credsticks would be all that uncommon, actually. In most major department stores these days, they have electronic gift cards, and from what I recall from my time working there "big line" gift cards from distributors like Mastercard and Visa have been popping up as well. Us retail clerks didn't even look at them askance. Of course, in your average mom 'n pop Stuffer Shack, things may be different... but given that many people pay with their own credsticks anyways, it seems pretty certain that said Shack would have the hardware necessary to read 'em.

I can easily imagine kids getting certified credsticks from their grandparents as birthday gifts.

I personally visualize a noncanon credstick with little "hard cash" detachable things about the size of a small metal nut that attach by some mystical property and can be swapped back and forth fairly easily, thus taking care of small-cash transfers and the like.
I really can't describe it, but if any of you want to visit my brain the image is there.

~J

Well, the SINless could have obtained certified credsticks somehow.

But that's another drawback to being SINless, I suppose. And why grey marketeers make such a profit.

-Siege

The Nuyen is an electronic currency only. No cash form of it is printed. National and megacorp currencies do however exist is cash form.

Looking at SSG, it appears that registered credsticks can have certified funds on them as well.

I imagine that the certified funds would be useful for stick to stick transfers of cash where a reader is unavailable or inconvenient. Accessing money stored in the character's normal bank account would still require a Credstick Reader.

If the credstick were stolen, the user would lose only the certified funds on the stick.

Maybe people who work with tips (like strippers) have discreet credsticks model (like a wrist, ankle, of maybe necklace) that allow them to do small, rapid stick-to-stick transfers.

Hmm... I think I'm gonna incoporate that in my games...

That's an excellent idea, Backgammon.

indeed. i've never really liked the 'credstick' model--way too inconvenient. i mean, they'd have to completely redesign the common wallet; otherwise, you'll lose the damn things all the time.

I usually used the Mobil Speedpass as the basic credstick, but I can definatly see fashion designers going nuts with credsticks as they pretty much replace wallets and keys.

Which still happens today, although they are few and far between.

-Siege

Siege, credit cards, though being on the rise on this side of the pond aren't accepted at every establishment yet. And the same goes for bank cards on your side of the pond as much as credit cards have that problem here. We're all getting there.

Once we remove the existence of physical currency, I'd imagine even my favorite "beer n fingers" joint will have to start taking cred.

Hell, if Backgammon's idea about mini-credsticks with limited transaction capability works, it solves the last of my major complaints about the idea of strictly e-currency.

Although in the US there will be some cranky holdouts who don't trust the government, conspiracy theorists and so on.

I have to admit, the afore-mentioned "beer n fingers" place is the only example I can think of that doesn't take cred.

Even street artist booths are starting to take credit cards...well, the more successful ones anyway.

-Siege

Edit: proof-reading sucks /edit

I have to wonder where the stick form-factor came from. Given lack of a good reason to change it, it seems to me that simple inertia would keep the current card form-factor in use.

Of course, given that credsticks have, per SSG, the ability to transmit over short range, there's no reason that they should even need a standard form-factor, because they shouldn't need to be actually inserted into a reader. They can just do everything wirelessly. Given a decent public-key encryption authentication system, it should be effectively unsnoopable. Though, given the woeful state of encryption in the SR world, that might not be wise... of course, that could be equally well applied to the entirety of the digital monetary system.

Anyway, there's no reason that you couldn't build such a thing into a ring or watch or necklace or whatever other convenient-to-wear form-factor you can come up with. Remember those JavaDots they were going on about a few years back?

And, of course, for the ultimate in never losing your credstick, there's always the option of getting it implanted. Cybercredstick! Hook it to a datajack port, control it via DNI... it's a lot easier than messing around with whatever manual controls they put on the things. You can even route it to your Math SPU and have it accurately calculate and pay the tip automatically!

I thought the transmission beacon was just an ID tracker. You still have to slot the card to move cash.

Uh, yes. My point was not that credsticks do this by canon, but that, given their capabilities as established by canon, there's no technical reason that they couldn't be made to do it, and that they'd be a whole lot more convenient if they did.

Well, the idea is to not have the cred verification unit, which is hideously expensive. A discreet mini-credstick that only receives and transfers certified funds is what I'm talking about. The girl gets the stick inserted in her receiver (no apologies for sexual innuendo ) and *certified* cred gets tranfered. Later one, when she gets home or her pimp beats the crap out of her, the stick is plugged into a verification unit which validates that the cred you have is real, and it is transfered into a bank account.

Or the girls step to a credit verification stand when they come off the stage.

I still like the idea of the casual transfer concept. Although the now-infamous "Gold Club" used to have club dollars.

You bought x-number of club dollars which were charged to your card and you could buy drinks or tip dancers or whatever.

So options exist all the way around -- I'd imagine the pre-paid cash card (certified cred "stick") that's making the rounds here would be easily dispensed from ATMs and the like for people worried about flashing their primary credstick.

-Siege

card or stick, whats the diff? all you need i sa place to put a 1x1cm chip that holdt a account number, a id number and maybe photo and a name. not to hard to do (alltho you can print the name and number onto a card)...

as for a money card, it allready exists in use on school grounds here and there, just replace the storage area for account info and so on with storeing the amount on the card. and when you "slot" the lady the account registerd to the reader will just drain an amout of the card. probably the card holder will see and verify the amount (alltho i recall a story about a porn site that drained credit cards of people, got told by the legal system to pay them back and sent out checks with the corp logo on (something like big huge sex site or something), feel like cashing that at you local shopping mall or bank any time soon?).

and if you replace the cash storage of the atm with a card dispnser it can hold say 3-4000 blank cards i think. and no reason to rob the atm as its all elctronic (no physical cash to run of with) so you can make it smaller and lighter

hell, im paying my bus fares this way. i have a card with aset amount on prepaid and when i go on the bus i hadn it to the driver, he enters destination and the card gets drained. its jsut a question of implementing it on a bigger scale (as in getting it standardized, and we just know how corps like standards)...