The analysis argues that the outsourcing of production from the metropole generated problems of monetary connectivity that motivated the banking sector to develop and market a new species of derivative: the financial derivative. Virtually non-existent until 1973, such derivatives would soon become a 100 trillion dollar market. Making a market for these derivatives opened the door for speculative capital just as the attempt by this market to capture the risks embodied in local monetized relations led to emergence of a notion of abstract risk. The notion of abstract risk, embodied in the derivative and propelled by a self-expanding speculative capital, is globally significant because abstract risk functions as a social mediation, creating a new form of interdependence in the sphere of circulation even as circulation itself grows increasingly autonomous from production. We show that what makes the emergent culture of financial circulation historically new is that it is defined and determined through the objectification of abstract risk.