randomeer: SpaceMonkey
Aliens probably don’t use currency the way we do. If they can bend spacetime like it’s clingfilm, I’m sure they’ve got their financial situation handled without needing a debit card or a “contactless limit”. But if they did use currency, it wouldn’t be anything sensible. It would be whatever nonsense makes sense to them, which is already a warning sign.
Take the Greys, for example. Judging by the amount of shiny metal junk they left scattered around Roswell, their entire economy is basically built on scrap. Anything reflective, crumpled, or vaguely metallic is apparently worth a fortune to them. They’re like cosmic magpies with a UFO licence. Meanwhile, we’re here trying to figure out what the “mysterious alloy” is, when it’s probably just whatever fell off the dashboard before they clipped a weather balloon.
Then you’ve got the lizard aliens, who operate on a completely different level of “absolutely not okay”. Their whole economy seems to revolve around leather. Not leather goods. Not leather fashion. Just… leather. Raw, cured, patterned, exotic — doesn’t matter. If it’s skin, it’s currency. And yes, in their eyes, humans are basically walking wallets. We wear crocodile shoes; they wear us. It’s not personal. It’s just commerce. If anything, they probably think we’re being dramatic about it. “Oh no, the humans don’t like being skinned.” Well, we don’t like paying rent either, but here we are.
And that’s just two species. The universe is full of civilisations with their own “perfectly normal” economic systems that would get them arrested on Earth.
The point is, if aliens use currency at all, it’s not going to be logical, ethical, or remotely sanitary. It’ll be whatever they have lying around, whatever they can peel off something, or whatever they can yank out of a crashed spacecraft before the locals show up. And if they ever land and ask to “see your wallet”, don’t. Just run. Because in at least one galactic marketplace, you are the wallet.
