Physical cash has both benefits and drawbacks. One of the major benefits is that you can use it at establishments that don’t accept credit or debit, which are surprisingly frequent if you live in a big city. Some major drawbacks are that it’s more difficult to trace and much easier to steal than electronic funds. Those two drawbacks are on the verge of being remedied, though, as a team of American scientists has created paper equipped with RFID tags, making any paper money easily traceable.
First, imagine what would be more difficult to mug: all of the paper money in your wallet, or you debit card. If a mugger is trying to get in and get out as quickly as possible, walking you all the way to an ATM (which might have a camera watching) while you input your PIN makes the robbery much riskier. If you have a stack of cash, though, a mugger can complete the transaction rather quickly. If you are partial to cash, paper tender equipped with RFID tags would make it much easier to track that mugger as he runs off with your Benjamins.
Currently, paper equipped with RFID tags exists, but the tags are too thick (example pictured to the right) to be seamlessly incorporated with the thin paper and remain flush. However, a team at North Dakota State University developed a process that uses lasers to create and install RFID tags small enough to fit into a thin sheet of paper. Dubbed Laser Enabled Advanced Packaging (LEAP), RFID tags are shaved down using a plasma etcher, then are transferred over and installed into the paper using a laser. Then, the tags’ antennas are installed using the same method.
According to the team, the chips, and manufacturing and installation processes, are much cheaper than creating and installing a standard RFID tag, since the chips use less material and the lasers are less expensive than normal installation means.
Of course, the RFID paper can branch out of currency and be used in any important document, such as concert tickets or receipts. Some of you may not like the idea of your money or tickets becoming easily traceable — or even worse, having the cash in your wallet hacked in some way, perhaps to pinpoint your current location. However, RFID-equipped currency would certainly make the money easier to track should it get stolen, and it’d be very easy to organize your receipts for tax purposes, which would make life less stressful once a year. It’s worth pointing out that RFID-enabled cash could only be tracked from a short range; this isn’t going to allow the government or some shadowy megacorp to track you via satellite.
At the moment, the RFID-equipped paper is just a project in a lab, and the North Dakota team is looking for a way to bring it to market. If you aren’t thrilled with paper money that’s easier to track, though, you can always invest everything you own into Bitcoin.
Now read: Stop worrying, and embrace RFID