The economy has seen crashes and booms within the past hundred years that threatened to cripple progress and the world we know now. With a worldwide playing field, corporations grew to enormous power levels with very few places in the world untouched by their influence. Corporations pushed for faster, sleeker, and more integrated technologies which lead to governments becoming more and more heavily invested in promoting the corporations that would line their pockets. Party lines of “no more unemployment” and a “living wage” were bought by the populous and quickly put into place. There are very few people in the world now that are unemployed - those who are risk the prosecution of the law for “Endangering the Public Good”. Corporations are always happy to find jobs for the unwashed masses, depending on where your talents lie. Unmodified? New Atlantis will train you to proselytize for your daily wage. Bionic junkie? Clockwork Mobius is happy to have another believer in the betterment of humanity placed into its service. Filled with trauma? YBL can find someone who wants to experience your pain without lasting damage - and pay you so you can drown your demons with cheap liquor and AR. The pay is enough to get a person shelter, medical attention, food, and a small amount of pleasure, driving people to seek out recreation in their monotonous existence.
The world functions on two very different types of currency, one for the public eye and one that is passed in whispers and deft hands in and out of a stranger's pockets.
The public currency that people are paid with is called simply “coin”; with physical money a thing of the past, coin is transferred digitally via small reusable transmitters that record the encrypted data of whom the coin comes from, where it originates from, amount, and who it goes to. The encryption is good for a small window of time and must be corroborated by biometric scans, thus paydays make for very long lines at Coin Deposit Scan Systems (CDS’s). (Spencer’s space corporation whose name I can’t recall) has recently pioneered small drone based CDS systems that are deployed on a rotating basis in largely populated areas in order to better accommodate wait times, for a small transaction fee.
The other currency is simply called “favors”. Passed in a handwritten line of code, the blank transaction of coin can only be traced if one is careless. Drugs, murders, kidnappings, and stolen goods all have touches of favors lingering around them.