From Barter to Blockchains - WTF is… Money?

Razer g2s at riseup.net
Sat Aug 5 08:53:28 PDT 2017


Hackermoon...

> 13.7 billion years ago, the Big Bang brought the universe into
> existence. 3.8 billion years ago, life first appeared on our planet.
> 1.9 million years ago, Earth witnessed a hominid species, Home
> erectus, walking upright for the first time.
>
> And, 7,000 years ago, money was invented.
>
> But first, people bartered.
>
> Not everyone had everything. We always had something in surplus, and
> we always needed something that the other person had. As the common
> sense would have said, we started exchanging our surplus assets for
> what we needed.
>
> Imagine I had extra apples and you had extra oranges, we could simply
> exchange fruits with one another.
>
> What if I had a surplus of apples, and didn’t want your oranges, but
> I’d love to have some strawberries.
>
> You would go and find someone who can give you strawberries in
> exchange for your oranges. Luckily you find your friend, Joe, to
> barter with you.
>
> Then, you’d bring me those strawberries, and I’d give you some apples.
>
> Joe, you and I are all happy.
>

(Did I mention the lovely illustrations?)

> But what if Joe had a surplus of bananas, but he didn’t want your
> oranges either? That would be a problem.
>
> The smart among us started asking a profound question, “Can there be
> something that everyone wants?”
>
> Then, there was commodity money.
>
> There were a few things that almost everyone used, like salt, seeds,
> sheep, and cows. They became the commodity money. If we had any of
> these, we could use them to get whatever we wanted....


In full at hACKERMOON: https://hackernoon.com/wtf-is-money-2a5d78072128


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