The yellow metal’s early history wasn’t in gold coins but in big lumps of uncoined metal. Various forms of commodity money had been used up to that point but gold emerged as the superior option. However in its uncoined form, trade using gold as money was inefficient as merchants had to assess the weight and […]
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History has certainly served up some beautiful gold coins. Gold became money because it was scare, malleable, durable, portable, divisible and fungible. Beauty wasn’t one of the requirements, but nevertheless it certainly helps gold’s timeless appeal. I must admit, my bias is towards the modern coins. I love the ancient coins for their history and
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The longest lasting fiat currency in history is the Great British Pound. The pound dates back to 928, making it the oldest currency still in use, although it has only been a fully fledged fiat currency since 1971. Initially defined as a weight of silver, the pound became a fiat currency briefly in 1745 due
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Fiat currency is a type of currency that exists only by government decree. It refers to the nature of the currency being untethered to a commodity with new units being easily created at will. Legal tender is a status that a government bestows on a currency, stating that it must be accepted by merchants and
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The commodity theory of money is the view that money emerged from barter and that physical commodities that were well suited as a store of value and a medium of exchange came to function as money. This theory is asserted by the Austrian School of economics. The founder Carl B. Menger stated: “[Money] is not
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Today gold is the dominant monetary metal with silver often thought of as the junior partner.1 However it hasn’t always been that way throughout history. Silver has a long history of use as money and it could be argued that it has been even more influential than gold. Because silver is more abundant than gold
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The history of fiat currency is a history of failed experiments. Authorities have sought to utilise the flexibility it gives their finances, but have often mismanaged it and brought catastrophe. While fiat currency is the norm today, it has been less common in the past. Throughout much of human history, society has used some form
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The development of Monero was a significant evolution in the world of cryptocurrency. However, unlike Bitcoin, the history of Monero is not very well known. Monero (XMR) is a private by default Proof of Work cryptocurrency that was created in April 2014 as a fork of Bytecoin, using the CryptoNote protocol. The key value proposition
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For most of human history societies have used some form of hard money. The definition of hard money is a form of money were it is difficult to produce new units and therefore it is difficult to increase the supply. This is also known as sound money. Easy money, by contrast, is money that is
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The world’s first cryptocurrency was Bitcoin. In October 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper online explaining his concept of a decentralised peer-to-peer payment network. Shortly after, in January 2009, Satoshi released the Bitcoin software and mined the first block. The concept of cryptocurrency actually predates Bitcoin by a few decades. There were several efforts
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