How was money invented?💰 WHO brought this idea?

WHAT IS MONEY?

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Thousands of years ago things like gold, shells, wheat and salt have been used generations in the past to represent value and as a medium of exchange. why?

This is because they possess a certain VALUE physically embedded or attached to them in such a way that the items could be used because of what they can do for you and i. This value they saw in these items made it acceptable for other physical values as well. But for something to be able to continue representing value, the people who are using it must continue trusting that such medium of exchange is indeed valuable and more importantly, its value will persist for a long time so that they will still be able to benefit from it in the future.

Now we can say that money is anything that has value and is acceptable as a means of exchange for other values as well.

HOW DID THE TRUST OF MONEY EVOLVE?

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Only until one or two centuries ago, the society had always placed their trust in something when it comes to the value or when it represents money. But the way people trust in money has really evolved from trusting something of value, to trusting someone. What do I mean by this?

Just like I stated earlier over time, people caught on to the fact that using such things as a measure of value and medium of exchange can be quite burdensome.

For instance, you can imagine buying groceries with seashells or salt? What if inflation was very high in the last couple of years and you want to buy two or three months’ worth of groceries?

Can you imagine bringing that much salt to the supermarket? And if you're the grocery owner or seller, can you imagine having to weigh the salt being paid to you by your customers and needing a very large space and vehicle to store and transport all that salt? Ok what if it rains? I believe you can get the picture?.

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Now because of such inconvenience, people had to improvise and come up with a more practical value, storage and payment solution this gave birth to PAPER MONEY!

PAPER MONEY (FIAT)!

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And that is how it worked in the beginning. As the trust of money evolved from trusting an item of value to trusting someone (government),

When you take up a bank or the government's offer to collect a physical possession of your gold bars, sea shells or salts for storage the government will issue you certificates called bills (paper money) for the amount or value of the gold you deposited with them. If your gold bars or seashells were worth $100, the bank or the government taking possession of that item would issue you a paper certificate or bills worth $100.

Now think about this idea which is easier to carry around. Paper bills worth $100 or carrying seashells, salt and animal meat worth $100? Pretty funny isn’t it?

And if you wanted your gold bars or sea shells back, all you need to do is give $100 worth of bills or certificates back to the bank or government in other to redeem your gold bars. It's that simple and easy! Because of the convenience and practicality it brings, paper money has grown so much in popularity and has become the primary means by which goods and services are bought and sold all over the world today.

The word "fiat" is a Latin word that is best interpreted as "by decree or by order" this means that any fiat currency or paper money, only has its value because their respective governments say so As a result of such legal decree or order of value, paper or fiat currencies are also called "legal tender" which means they have to be accepted for payment of goods and services in their respective countries.

That being said, you can now see that money as we know it today has value only because of its legal status that has been declared by the government. Now this justifies to what I said earlier that, the trust in the value of money shifted from something (gold, sea shells, salts or animal meat) to someone (the government)

In other not to get you filled up in a whole day by one post, I will have to put pressure on my brake here and I want your positive ideas and mindset about this post as well as it will encourage me continue this great article of “UNDERSTANDING CRYPTOCURRENCY AND HOW IT ALL STARTED” thank you for your positive contributions and see you soon. Gracias!

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