Germany Announces Plans To Issue Hybrid Metal-Polymer Coin

For quite some time, I've been wondering when plastic (or cardboard) coins with printed designs would become the norm. This would continue the cheapening process that started long ago, when gold coins and then silver coins stopped circulating.

I suppose the inevitable end point of all this will be to go all electronic (cashless).

Plastic / fiber coins actually did circulate for limited period of time. Keeling Cocos attempted this in 1913 and then during WWII, Germany experimented with various materials with notgeld and China had fiber coins circulated in 1944 and 1945. Obviously they didn't last too long in circulation.

I'm more curious to know if the inner part would rotate around. Early Canadian coins (2 dollar coin) were known for this problem and some would throw them in the fridge to separate the inner and outer core.

The ring & plug of a typical bimetallic are solidly locked together during the minting process by the flow of metal. Plastic just doesn't have the necessary material properties.