In 2011, designers and artists were challenged to redesign a banknote and incorporate some ‘smart’ technology:

… Intricate illustrations, watermarks and foil have been used to make banknotes as secure as possible, although with the advent of home printing this old technology is at a crossroad. 

What does the future hold for hard currency? What if paper were replaced with plastic? If the watermark was substituted with a microchip? And the illustrations replaced by electronic displays? Such advances in technology would change the designer’s constraints and allow for a completely new system of trade to be developed…