Funding Source: Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation – My research project examines the cultural history of money by charting its development and use across time and place. Beginning with the giant stone currency (rai) found on the Micronesian island of Yap, and moving through increasingly portable and eventually intangible examples (coins, paper currency, credit/debit cards, Venmo), the project seeks its logical endpoint in a discussion and cross-cultural comparison of newly emergent cryptocurrencies and the myriad forms that have preceded them. Here, I argue that humankind’s social and cultural constructions can be directly linked (and mirrored in) to our relationship with currency, a claim I will address and unpack through a careful examination of our transition from the tactile to the digital, from an oral to an electronic world of communication and exchange. The first phase of this project involves a preliminary and concentrated research trip to Yap to see the stones, meet with their owners, and talk with community members about their relationships to this unique form of currency.