Is there any chance at all that the upcoming Matrix crash might cause people to become a bit more wary of using credsticks for all of their transactions, thus ushering in a resurgence of the popular use of hard currency? I really hope so, as credsticks have always been a big beef of me for the shadow community at the very least, both believabiliy-wise and atmospherically (is that even a word?).

A briefcase full of ten thousand nuyen cash is so much more impressive than sliding a stupid little stick across the table. At least for me.

I pay runners in briefcases full of ¥100 certified credsticks sometimes.

~J

Paying in Soy Twinkies is ocassionally amusing. Of course most often I use small denomination certified cred, leave the runners an account number, or if the Johnson is in a good mood, I let the runners decide the terms of payment.

A briefcase full of cash is flashy, but there's a certain elegant charm in setting that single ebony credstick down onto the table.

The problem with that though is the GM then has to keep track of the currecy conversion rates, who has access to what cash, in what denominations, and that's rarely been something kept in one convient spot, IIRC (the Denver book had a table like that).

Yes, it had.
And if you used the table in the Denver book as they suggested (the same table is available on the FanPro website, having been cut from SONA), you end up with characters trying to make money by speculating on currency exchange rates and arbitrage, rather than Shadowrunning (up to a 60% variation in value between the UCAS dollar and the Nuyen was possible over the course of a single day, iirc...).

I'd be happy with a simple Nuyen currency, backed by the Corporate Council or something along those lines. Couple that with a fixed rate of exchange for other currencies should a GM want to use them, and it mostly just becomes color to use hard Nuyen, UCAS Dollars, or any other currency.

Fluxuating exchange rates are no more a requirement with hard currency as it is with credsticks. Cash just has more style, flavor, and uses to it in my opinion.

I mean, if someone was hiring me to assassinate someone, I seriously doubt if I'd accept a credit card as payment.

Current era, current digital economy, I can safely say that 90% of the major purchases I make (major meaning amount of money spent at any one time; I delegate the other 10% of such major purchases to being really big grocery bills or spending the contents of my spare change jar on Christmas presents once a year) are done without money changing hands. I use credit and debit cards, via physical cardswipe or online authorization, in lieu of carrying and doling out physical units of currency. I'm pretty sure this is a growing, rather than shrinking, trend. I'd say that by 2070, an event necessary to induce people to revert to cash purchases would have to be comparable to an event that'd push us, in modern day, back to the physical exchange of precious metal coinage of specified mass, or even the barter system. It'd have to be some sort of Infocalypse, that tore down a lot of existing society and culture, to create such regressive echoes in the global economy.

You know, speaking of certified credsticks, I never quite got the reason why these existed. I mean, aren't they only really valuable to people who want to be anonymous when paying for things - primarily criminals?

Everyone, from drug pushers selling cocaine to governments financing international arms deals with sanctioned nations, have vested interests in making it so that in any economic system they participate in, there are means for moving money around... discretely.