The global financial crisis of 2008 was described through metaphoric images referring to blood. For instance, metaphors such as lifeblood, liquidity, blood pressure, cardiac arrest, and transfusion were linked to cash/credit ‘flow’, where the target and the source share the concept of a body animated by a closed circulatory system. The study shows that organic economic analogies have informed policy recommendations, often with bad effect. The study introduces the concept of meta-materiality to explain why the anthropology of finance must go beyond metaphorical readings of economic discourse if it hopes to understand phenomena such as the literal uses of blood in political protest and the accelerated commodification of blood donation in response to the crisis.