No Cash, No Coins, No Cards, But You: Biohacking the Future of Payments

This chapter introduces a brief overview of transhumanism, biohacking, and embodied technologies as modes of payment. Specifically, it details the usage of biocompatible microchip implants which, in some cases, replace keychains, car keys, business cards, IDs, and credit cards. Because of this implantable mode of payment, consumers pay for their purchases by tapping their hands on readers, smartphones, or other point-of-sale (POS) terminals that can interact using near-field communications (NFC). Here, there is no need for cash, coins, or any other physical bank card—only their hands. The chapter then concludes with the considerations regarding ethical and managerial challenges that consumers and companies have been facing in this futuristic context.