While earlier forms of money consisted of anything from sea shells to sheep, coins made of gold and silver gradually emerged as the most practical means of exchange and for the storing of value. The Chinese were the first to move from coins to paper, and soon enough promissory notes entered into the equation, these led to credit and bank cheques, stocks and bonds, and today Interac and digital wallets on mobile gadgets.

Something quite incredible has happened: money has morphed into pixels ... it's gone abstract.

It's out there, moving faster than the human mind, in volumes we can no longer comprehend ... $3 trillion sloshing around the internet every day ... billions hidden in crypto-currencies ... a quadrillion dollars a year trade in derivatives, worth ten times the total worth of every product manufactured worldwide during the last century.

Money has transcended reality.