At the start of the French Revolution, the National Assembly faced two major economic and social challenges: the staggering debt and a society entrenched in corporate hierarchies. This article examines how, as the deputies overhauled the currency system to shore up state finances, money created unexpected popular inroads to both arenas of reform. In order to quickly emit new paper money called assignats, the deputies first printed bills in denominations too large for retail trade. In response, Parisian merchants formed novel coalitions to protect alternative forms of small change. They joined forces across traditional occupational divisions to evaluate currency and call for practical tokens. In doing so, the retailers influenced the trajectory of national monetary reform from 1790 to 1793. Unable to subdivide large assignats, everyday citizens turned to nascent financial societies for usable tokens. The resulting monetary networks delineated new groups of individuals who required common bill denominations, relied on overlapping systems of credit, and shared confidence in local issuers of promissory notes. Thus, rather than petitioning the state as distinct trade corporations, butter merchants, fish wholesalers, carpenters, and others formed innovative alliances as currency communities. Therefore, this article argues that even before the deputies abolished the guilds in 1791, Parisians reached across the boundaries of corporate society. Merchants continued these diverse associations after 1791 in order to avoid charges of illegal syndicalism. While demanding pocket change, the popular classes reimagined social identities and reordered the corporate world from within between 1789 and 1793.