For some people, physical currency is crucial for daily life. In 2021, the “unbanked” share of the population stood at 4.5% of U.S. households – nearly 6 million, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Eliminating cash would further shunt those people out of the economy, says Bill Maurer, director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine. … Though their relevance is questioned, coins are “one of our most ancient technologies,” says Professor Maurer of the University of California, Irvine. “As a human invention, they’re a relatively successful one and a durable one.”

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