A new Cold War is under way. Whereas the first Cold War was dominated by the threat of nuclear conflict, the new front line is economic and financial, but still dominated by technology. Who controls its future will help decide the outcome of the geopolitical struggle between China and the US.

Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad.

China was the first country to recognise the potential of this new money. The West’s media focused on the new currency’s role in China’s surveillance state, creating widespread concern about all CBDCs. But they have largely overlooked a more important aspect of its existence: as a tool through which to ‘de-dollarize’ the developing world at the speed of light. When China’s President Xi officially launched the digital yuan in February 2022, he also agreed a pact of ‘limitless co-operation’ with Russia. Within days, Russia launched its war on Ukraine, secure in the knowledge it would be able to sell its oil in spite of US sanctions.

Urgent, clear-eyed and ground-breaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed even to consider. If the West is to compete, it needs to act fast to develop its own global digital currencies that reflect the values of liberal democracies.