Do you know how our money has evolved over the years as a means of payment? If you take a closer look at the evolution of our money, you will quickly see that cryptocurrencies are a very logical continuation of this ancient evolution! Hereby a little history lesson by team InforCrypt!
The stone age
First we take you back to the Stone Age over 7000 years ago. Money was something that obviously did not exist yet: people simply exchanged their goods, animals and food with each other. This system was very easy, but it did have some drawbacks. For example, it could happen that you wanted to trade apples, but no one needed apples at that time. If that was the case for a long period of time, your apples would rot and be worth nothing. So man began to find solutions to this problem.
2500 B.C.
In 2500 BC, the first form of money was used in the form of silver bars. The origin of the use of these bars can be traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. The precious bars were broken into pieces so that they could be used effectively as a means of payment.
1500 B.C.
In 1500 B.C., the cowrie shell came into circulation, and this was the ideal means of payment for countries like China. The shell was used adrift as a means of payment, and it retained its value relatively well due to a certain scarcity. This is because the shell is rare, which creates scarcity and that is naturally linked to a certain value.
640 B.C.
Around 640 BC, gold coins were first used as a means of payment, and this under the rule of King Kroisos. This took place in distant Lydia, a region now called Turkey.
10th century A.D.
Let's jump a long way back in time: to the 10th century A.D., when the Chinese were the first to switch to paper money backed by gold; a gold standard that would cement itself in our history for a long time to come.
14th century
The Jews and the Temple Knights paved the way for the first banks: in fact, at numerous Templar commanderies, they took on the function of a bank. People trusted them under other their possessions, and the Templars began to set up current accounts and savings books for their "clients." They did this in the fairest way possible. As mentioned earlier, the Jews also knew their way into banking, but there was one very big difference to be found with the Templars. Within Islam and the Catholic Church, it was forbidden to collect interest because according to their religions it had a destructive effect, and you could face the death penalty if you did collect interest. Judaism, however, always allowed interest and saw no problem with it, so Jewish bankers were allowed to collect interest. Because of the lead the Jewish community took at the time in banking, we still regularly see Jewish names appearing at the largest financial institutions today.
20th Century
Here we take another leap forward in time to the year 1924. This is when the credit card was created, you know, those fancy plastic cards you can pay with anywhere! Then, in 1967, the first bank ATMs were created and from then on people used the means of payment as we all know them today. FUN FACT: The inventor of the credit card originally wanted to set up a 6-digit PIN as security for the card, but his wife could only remember a maximum of 4, so now we only enter 4 digits when we want to withdraw money from our account!
Today
As you probably already know, our money is nothing more than a digit in a bank computer. Our digital monetary system actually took over all the problems of cash money and the two work hand in hand. For instance, our system is extremely sensitive to the interest rates set from above and the amount of money that is printed. You can guess what the result of this is: namely the loss of our purchasing power in its purest form, and that by maintaining perpetual inflation. Surely this system could be arranged better so that we do not have to keep running into the same age-old problems. Since our money has become largely digital, it only takes a small leap to evolve to the next logical step in the evolution of our money.
Logical next step
So what is this next step? Well, quite simply, it is the step we can take to pry ourselves away from our banking system and take control of our own money through Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The crypto system is the most honest and democratic payment system ever, separate from banks and governments. People become their own bank and transactions happen directly between 2 people; without manipulations, interest rates or prying eyes. This system can provide a form of total freedom for people, especially those living in oppressive regimes, for example. Bitcoin will change the lives of all people, we just don't know yet how this will manifest itself. The monetary (r)evolution is already peeking around the corner, don't miss it!