History Main / PracticalCurrency

WeirdCurrency is a SuperTrope; EnergyEconomy is a SubTrope. See also GoldSilverCopperStandard. This is often used as a way to justify CastFromMoney.

* In ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', when the crew first arrives in the Delta Quadrant, they find that the only thing most aliens there care about is how much water you have to offer them. Of course, once the Kazon find out that Starfleet replicators can make an unlimited amount of water, they immediately declare war on Voyager to try to obtain their technology.

* ''[[{{Anime/Akira}} AKIRA]]'': After [spoiler: Akira's destruction of Neo-Tokyo], many of the survivors have opted to use things like pills or solar cells as currency instead of Yen.

* ''WebAnimation/{{Shrapnel}}'' takes place AfterTheEnd, and while there is some form of regular money floating around, it’s not the only thing people use as currency:

* Zigzagged in ''[[VideoGame/AnimalCrossing Animal Crossing: New Horizons]]'': Nook Miles Tickets are used to redeem trips to mystery islands, which is used as a method of hunting for desired villagers, costing 2,000 Nook Miles for one roll. A fan site used for trading, Nookazon, allows you to set the price of your offer in Bells, Nook Miles Tickets, and even other desired items on a purchase.

-> ''"...Do they not see that only Dust can give them what they want? For it is money and power and magic all intertwined in one miraculous substance! It is the essence that binds our civilizations together."''
-->-- '''The Roving Clans''', ''Videogame/EndlessLegend''

* ''Literature/MakingMoney'': There's much [[DiscussedTrope discussion]] of this, including pointing out that gold is worthless on a desert island, that it's also worthless in a gold mine (where the medium of exchange is the pickaxe), and the contrast between what happens when you bury gold vs. when you bury a potato. Oh, and in the end they decide to base the currency on {{golem}}s.
** Commerce in the villages of Lancre, where hard currency is a rarity, is more likely to be negotiated in chickens than in coins.
** The idea of paper currency started in ''Going Postal'', when people began using postage stamps as a means of exchange. The postage stamps are backed by the Post Office's services (a penny stamp is effectively a promise to carry a penny's worth of mail), and since the reliability of the Post Office is beyond reproach, they are generally considered to be as good as gold.

* ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' has fairly standard coinage, but it's also the go-to weapon for [[ExtraOredinary steelpushers]], to the point that steel mistings are called coinshots.

* Another Creator/BrandonSanderson example, from ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': The currency is ''spheres,'' tiny chips of gemstones encased in marble-sized glass balls. But they're not valuable because they're gemstones, but because the gemstones can act as magical foci for various things, particularly ''Soulcasting'' (transmutation magic). Diamonds are the least valuable, because they have the least useful Soulcasting property, whereas emeralds, which can be used to turn stones into food, are the most valuable denomination.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''VideoGame/''{{Starmancer}}'' has Zypher, described as a "programmable matter", as the main form of currency.

* ''Manga/SilverSpoon'': In one scene, a group of upperclassmen shows up at Class 1-D wanting to have some of the bacon that Hachiken made. When they reveal that they don't have any money, Hachiken thinks they're going to mug him for the bacon, [[BaitAndSwitch but then the upperclassmen ask if it's okay if they exchange the farm products they made, such as jam, a basket of vegetables, and a large bag of rice, for a package of his bacon]]. Hachiken accepts the bartering.

* ''Literature/MakingMoney'': There's much [[DiscussedTrope discussion]] of this, including pointing out that gold is worthless on a desert island, that it's also worthless in a gold mine (where the medium of exchange is the pickaxe), and the contrast between what happens when you bury gold vs. when you bury a potato. Oh, and in the end they decide to base the currency on {{golem}}s. The idea of paper currency started in the previous book, when people began using postage stamps as a means of exchange.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' games after 7 use bolts, which either Auto or Roll use to manufacture upgrades for Mega Man. ''VideoGame/MegaManX8'' uses trangular Metals, which are similarly implied to be used for manufacturing upgrades.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': Macca is represented as odd bronze coins, but in fact is a form of PureEnergy edible to demons and necessary when summoning them from the Compendium, and as such, is a hot commodity on world suffering from demonic invasions. In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', Macca is also used to power the ''Red Sprite''[='=]s facilities, hence why you need to pony up Macca to heal, buy items, etc. even on the ship.
* Gold's not of much use in ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'', it being set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Bits of iron serve as the main currency instead, because they are backed up by the weapons that can be made from melting them down.
* ''VideoGame/CavesOfQud'' has drams of water as currency. Justified since the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where drinkable water is rare.
* ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' has G, which is miscellaneous scrap metal obtained from slain machine lifeforms and found in treasure chests. With the Earth being inhabited almost entirely by androids and machine lifeforms, salvageable scrap metal is a precious commodity.
* ''VideoGame/HeatSignature'' takes place in an acid-rich asteroid field, used to make batteries. And melt the bullet-proof armor off of people. Naturally, the local currency is barrels of acid, denoted with a waterdrop with some currency horizontal marks etched in. Then there's the Fleshstripper, a gun that expends 1 acid to fire a spread of shots; any enemies caught in the way will be StrippedToTheBone.
* In the ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'', the world uses a currency known as sx which looks like crystals. When refined, these crystals have anti-monster properties, with the more humanoid succubi and orcs being the only exceptions. The currency even avoids inflation because being used in such a manner drains them of magical energy sustaining and destroys them thus justifying taxation. Sx even justifies the MoneySpider trope by way of admitting that Sx is a naturally occuring substance in monsters.
* In ''Videogame/ForHonor'', steel is considered the main currency, both in gameplay and in-universe. This is primarily due to the MedievalStasis and [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] nature of the setting, which devastated the infrastructure and created a permanent ForeverWar. Steel is apparently very difficult to create (to the point that the Vikings use mostly leather and light chainmail and the Samurai use almost nothing but wood in their armor), and thus became an essential medium of exchange between the various factions.
* In both ''VideoGame/KingOfDragonPass'' and its prequel ''VideoGame/SixAges'', the primary unit of barter is the cow. A clan's wealth is measured primarily by the size of its herds. Trade goods, including coins, are sometimes exchanged in lieu of cows, and are measured in terms of how many cows they can buy. One event features your clan crestfallen when they discover they have been paid in worthless silver coins instead of cows. Your advisors attempt to explain the concept of currency as "a small portable cow that does not moo."
* ''VideoGame/CorridorZ'': Weapons, upgrades, perks, and outfits can be purchased with food rations.
* ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'' has Scrap as the galaxy's main currency. It's the only thing that still has any value in the wake of galactic civilization's collapse, and in gameplay it's spent to buy things or upgrade your battleship's statistics.
* The Mora of ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' looks like a standard fantasy [[GoldSilverCopperStandard gold coin]], but is noted to function as an all-purpose magical catalyst, explaining why you have to use it to enhance weapons and artifacts.
* In ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'' and ''Videogame/Destiny2'', Glimmer is a universal currency valued by pretty much anyone who can be traded with. Glimmer is a form of programmable matter that can easily be modified into any shape with the right equipment, making it highly valued, and can be "mined" via underground Golden Age factories that automatically produce it from raw material like rock.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'': Regular money pops up every now and then, but for the most part, the kids at Third Street Elementary uses candy, trading cards and comic books for currency. Even Hustler Kid, a character who can procure damn near everything from his CoatFullOfContraband, accepts them as legal tender.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Bone}}'', residents of the valley use things like eggs and livestock as currency. Phoney finds this out when he tries to spend Boneville dollars at Lucius's bar, and ends up having to WorkOffTheDebt.
* In ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'', Gotham City is cut off from the rest of the country and thus has no currency, with everyone using a barter system. Bullets are particularly prized; one man is mugged by a guy with a gun, and realizes he is in no danger. If the mugger actually had a bullet in that gun, the bullet would be worth a ''lot'' more than the paltry supplies he hopes to steal.

* ''Fanfic/TheUniversiad'': Similar to the ''Metro'' example below, the Forum's standard currency among them is bullets.
* ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'': The ''sol''s and ''lune''s, Equestria's original currency. While the coins themselves are made of gold and silver, that wasn't the original source of their value. Their value derived from the inscription on the edge: "Good for nearly all Princess Labor, Public and Private". Any pony could, if they desired, walk up to the palace and trade an appropriate number of these coins in to get the Princesses to perform any of a wide number of tasks for them. And the coins had value even outside of Equestria, because they could be spent to pay for the raising of Sun and Moon.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. When Voyager ends up on the far side of the galaxy, they purchase some local currency by exchanging Federation standard bars of lead-pressed uranium.

* ''Film/KinDzaDza'' has matchsticks (made of natural wood and sulfur) useable this way on Pluck.
* In ''Film/InTime'', time from one's ''lifespan'' is used as money. As you might expect, this creates an UnstableEquilibrium where the rich are functionally immortal and KillThePoor is taken very, ''very'' literally.

* In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' the closest thing to currency seen on ScavengerWorld Jakku are packets of dried dough that bake quickly, measured in "portions". The junk dealer Rey sells her findings to usually pays her fractions of a portion.

* In Hannu Rajaniemi's ''Literature/TheQuantumThief'', the currency on Mars is ''time''. When one runs out, their mind gets put into a robotic Quiet work body for a few years to earn more. Think [[JustForFun/XMeetsY community service meets forced labor]].
** In the sequel novel, ''Fractal Prince'', the city of Sirr uses a more disturbing form of currency: human minds. The city only exists because of the Wildcode Desert that protects it from Sobornost assimilation, but the Sobornost lust for all the minds forcefully uploaded into the Wildcode GreyGoo that they can't touch, so they hire the baseline humans of Sirr to "mine" them from the 'Code one at a time in return for scraps of their posthuman technology.

* Water on [[SingleBiomePlanet Dune]] itself and melange (spice) everywhere else in ''Franchise/{{Dune}}''. Spice is vital for the survival of the Spacing Guild, as it is necessary in order for their Navigators to use limited precognition to safely navigate through space.
* In the ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'' trilogy, "The Smoke" community uses instant food packs as currency, which makes [[TheMole newcomer Tally]] quite wealthy by the community's standards.
* Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/SeekersOfTheSky'': Iron. It's rare, because the local incarnation of Jesus wished out most of it out of existence. A character even mentions using gold for currency, only for another character to say that, while gold is valuable, it doesn't have a lot of use. Of course, you better keep all your iron bars in a dry environment. Since many wealthy people also know the FunctionalMagic of the Word, they can keep all their iron valuables safe and dry in their {{Pocket Dimension}}s known as the Cold, to retrieve as needed. There is a scene where the protagonist sees a flagship of TheEmpire with its sides gold-plated (to show off, not for armor). He muses that they could've easily afforded to ''iron''-plate the entire ship, but it would, of course, rust at sea.
* In Creator/MaryGentle's novel ''Literature/RatsAndGargoyles'', humans are not allowed cash, with a few exceptions; on one occasion, Mayor Tannakin Spatchet tries to pay the White Crow with a wheelbarrow full of brass pans, cheese, candles, paper, and so on.

* In Creator/TimPowers' ''Literature/DinnerAtDeviantsPalace'', the prevailing currency in a post-apocalyptic California is alcohol. It's a fuel, a disinfectant, and a beverage as well as money.
* In Creator/GeneWolfe's ''Literature/BookOfTheShortSun'' series, the inhabitants of the Whorl (a giant GenerationShip at the end of its journey, now orbiting a pair of potentially-inhabitable planets) have taken to using ''circuit boards'' as currency due to their scarcity. This, of course, means that the ship's already-strained technology is failing rapidly, and the theft of boards from the ship's few operational shuttles means that soon there'll be no way out for those who haven't already left.
* In Creator/GordonRDickson's ''Literature/ChildeCycle'', the interstellar currency is largely based on skilled professionals. If a planet needs someone or something, they hire out a specialist in exchange. The economy of the Fourteen Worlds is based on the trade of contracts, which not only affects political decisions, but also drives the plot of several stories.

* In ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'''s post-apocalyptic world canned food is used as the main currency.

* ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'': According to the Pawnee town charter, buffalo meat is acceptable currency.
* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': During Jake's time in prison, he finds out that since the various anti-smoking legislation over the past few years has made cigarettes impractical, they've been replaced by ramen packets as currency inside prison walls. Specifically ''gourmet'' ramen, the kind they don't sell in the prison cafeteria. Jake ends up having to procure 100 packets of ''Piccante Beef'' for the crimelord running the prison in return for a contraband cellphone.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}: Hell on Earth'': Although the game itself uses dollar values for convenience, it mentions that most places operate on a barter system and any spare 'cash' the characters have is usually in the form of easily transportable luxury items. Also, bullets are hard currency pretty much everywhere, due to consistently high demand and low or non-existent production.
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech:'' [=ComStar=]'s currency, the C-Bill, is based upon a fixed amount of transmission time on the organisation's [[SubspaceAnsible Hyper Pulse Generators]]. The exact amount seems to fluctuate, though its stability versus the currencies of the Great Houses, and that for inter-planetary communications, [=ComStar=] is for all intents and purposes the only game in town, make it very desirable. In the Dark Age, after the HPG network has collapsed aside from a few planets, the C-Bill has naturally become nearly worthless and an economic crisis has occurred throughout the Inner Sphere. One sourcebook mentions that because of all the instability, one of the most commonly used forms of "currency" has now become crates of ammunition.

* Trade is implied to be this in ''TabletopGame/StarRealms''. The starting units that provide Trade are not merchant craft but rather Scouts and Explorers - ship types that usually used to gather intelligence and scientific information respectively. Such data is useful in itself in research or navigation, but it can also be used in barter as well.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} AfterTheEnd'': Rifle cartridges are currency.

* ''TabletopGame/RedMarkets'': The DHQS bounty on pre-Crash legal documents has led to drivers licenses as the most common currency on both sides of the fence, redeemable for about one day's rations.
* The currency in ''TabletopGame/{{Hol}}'' is wastems, helpless little creatures that are used directly as money (as opposed to being bartered like livestock). Wastems double as emergency rations. Unfortunately, they look identical to wastits, whose favorite food is player characters.

* In some of the ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, rings are often used as a currency. Rings have had practical uses (such as protection) since the beginning of the series.
* ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'': [[{{Nanomachines}} Nanite]] packs are a basic exchange unit. The vending machines you buy from take the nanites you carry and literally use them as raw material to build the product you're asking for. And "selling" items is simply the machines breaking them down into nanites and giving them back to you.

* In a similar manner, the ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' community used certain well-known "rare" items (well, they drop rarely, but given the size of the playerbase there are still tens of thousands of them) such as the traditional Stone of Jordan ring as currencies. Though each trade was effectively a barter, valuable items would have an agreed-upon market value in, say, Stones of Jordan or Zod Runes. Later, due to a mechanics update, chipped gems (the "least valuable" kind) became especially useful in crafting, and became the de facto newbie currency (for players still too young to trade in Stones of Jordan).

* Souls are the standard currency in ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' since they are a source of great power. Some unlucky people in ''Demon's Souls'' actually need souls to ''exist'' since they (like yourself) are already dead and need souls to keep their own souls from fading away.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is some kind of an example, since its currency is Meat. [[SubvertedTrope You can't eat it,]] [[DoubleSubversion but you can make "meat paste" to combine items, and smith the Meat into weapons and armor.]]
* ''VideoGame/FreedroidRPG'' trades in Valuable Circuits, which also turns all droids into MoneySpider.
* ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'' uses ISK as its currency, but in-game time cards also act as currency, both for in-game and real currency, since it can be purchased with either.

* In the ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' series, bottlecaps are normally WeirdCurrency instead, but in games where you can craft bottlecap mines... In addition, ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' gives you the crafting recipe for filling a shotshell with silver coins, courtesy of Caesar's Legion.
** One mission involves a representative of the [[MegaCorp Crimson Caravan Company]] sending you to find an operating cap-making machine and shut it down, as any newly-made caps lower the value of the currency. She also notes that people waste caps when they use them as land mines.
** The setting's equivalent of the gold standard is this as well, after a fashion. Caps are backed by the most precious resource in the wasteland: Clean drinking water. Which doesn't help the New California Republic, as their gold-backed currency has taken a dive in value after losing their gold reserves in the NCR-Brotherhood War.
* In the {{Roguelike}} ''[[VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight FTL: Faster Than Light]]'', the "scrap" you collect throughout the universe can be used to pay merchants for repairs, supplies, or new weapons and systems. Or you could actually use it as spare parts to upgrade your existing systems, which also makes this a mix between ExperiencePoints and currency.
* ''{{Videogame/Eldritch}}'': A {{Roguelike}} "Artifacts" can be used as currency in the stores or as [[CastFromMoney fuel for your magic spells]].
* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', the economy is based on a barter system due to the fact that the continent of Wraeclast is a penal colony where gold is mostly useless. Rather than money, selling items to shopkeepers gets you scrolls to identify equipment and consumables that alter items. For exchanges between players the community has adopted chaos orbs (which reshuffle a rare item's modifiers) as the primary standard of exchange, being both abundant and having a broadly useful effect. More expensive items are sold for exalted orbs, which are rare and have more situational but potent applications. Items are also sometimes sold for relevant currency, such as maps being priced in cartographer's chisels (which improve the quality of maps).
* ''[[VideoGame/AntarcticAdventure Penguin Adventure]]'': Penguins using [[StockAnimalDiet fish]] as a medium of exchange.
* Dust in ''Videogame/EndlessSpace'', ''Videogame/EndlessLegend'', and ''VideoGame/DungeonOfTheEndless'', is an almost magical substance made of {{nanomachines}} created by the [[PreCursors Endless]]. All factions (bar the [[RockMonster Harmony]]) use it as their currency. In ''Endless Legend'', set on the medieval LostColony of Auriga, the Roving Clans revere the substance, being a [[ProudMerchantRace nation of traders]], even though they do not fully understand it, and in ''Dungeon of the Endless'' there are merchants who trade Dust. Dust is also the lifeblood of the Broken Lords, who had to encase their souls in AnimatedArmor sustained by Dust in order to survive Auriga's [[JustBeforeTheEnd collapsing climate]]. In-game this is represented by (most) empires being able to speed up building upgrades and recruiting units by 'spending' their Dust.
* The bushels of grain produced by your fields in ''VideoGame/{{Hamurabi}}'' can be used to [[ConstructAdditionalPylons buy additional land]].
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' series the currency is the Resource Unit (RU for short), an amount of mined resources that can be used to build starships but the Bentusi will take as currency in their trade.
* Similarly, the Earth starbase in ''[[VideoGame/StarControl Star Control II]]'' used RU as a credit system representing raw materials that could be used to supply their replicators and build upgrades for your ship. Other factions had their own currencies, as well; the Druuge traded in [[HumanResources slaves]], while the Melnorme were [[KnowledgeBroker information brokers]].
* In the ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' series, while the currency is still called "zenny," money in this world is not real money, but quantum refractors, which are used to generate energy. Particularly large refractors are used to power machines, but smaller and weaker refractors are traded as money. Nobody knows how to make more refractors, but they were used to power all the LostTechnology left behind by the Ancients, including the Reaverbots. This explains why robotic enemies in ancient ruins [[MoneySpider drop money when they explode]], and why there's a GlobalCurrency ([[ScavengerWorld resources are scarce]] and [[EnergyEconomy everyone needs an extra refractor in case energy runs low]]).

In the real world, there is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money commodity money]]. Not all commodity money is practical currency, however: gold, for example, until very recent times has very few not entirely decorative uses -- mostly, tableware -- but made good commodity money because it is pretty easy to tell what it is (to the uninitiated, silver, aluminum, and steel all look similar at first glance), rare (but not too rare, or else not enough people would have it to make many trades with), divisible (hard to make change with one cow), does not corrode, and had a generally-stable global supply (the last two combine to make it a relatively stable source to put your money in - see the RealLife entry on rice for what happens when it isn't).

* The metabugs in ''Anime/DennouCoil''. Useful for making programs to muck around in cyberspace, and as such to playful kids they're quite the commodity.