Page "Permutation City" Paragraph 10

The plot of Permutation City follows the lives of several people in a near future reality where the Earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change, the economy and culture are largely globalised ( the most commonly used denomination of currency is the ECU, the precursor to the euro in use at the time the book was written ), and civilisation has accumulated vast amounts of cloud computing power and memory which is distributed internationally and is traded in a public market called the QIPS Exchange ( QIPS from MIPS, where the Q is Quadrillions ).