-
During the years leading up to 9000bc people bartered as a form of payment for products. Bartering is a direct exchange of goods or services without using money. (Ex. bartered a meal for drawings.) -
Cattle was the first and oldest form of "money". The exchange of cattle for goods set the first form of pricing since the seller was able to set the price (in cattle) for their goods.
-
Cowrie shells are the shell of a mollusc that were commonly found in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. These were used in China during the Shang Dynasty and was the longest and most commonly used form of currency in history. In some places this form of currency was used into the 20th century.
-
Spade coins were the first form of metal currency. Made in China, Spade coins were created from bronze or copper. They were made to resemble miniature versions of the previously traded goods. However, due to the impractical shapes of these metals, they were later developed into round coins with holes so it could be worn on a chain. These became the first coins used as currency. -
Lydia's King Alyttes minted the first official certified currency. These coins were made from electrum and stamped with picture that acted as denominations. This currency increased Lydia's internal and external trading systems, making it one of the richest empires in Asia. Due to this other countries started to follow their lead and create their own coins. -
Leather money was one foot square pieces of white deerskin with a decorative boarder used as currency in China. Each of these slabs was worth about 400,000 copper coins. However since this leather was limited, this form of currency wasn't able to supply the treasury with the money needed to keep the country stable. Regardless, leather money is considered the first documented type of banknote. -
The first known paper banknotes appeared in China during the Song dynasty due to a shortage of metal coins.. Because this paper money was not backed by a given quantity of metal, this resulted in high inflation. Due to the high inflation, paper money became scarce and wasn't used again in china for many years. -
Paper money began to catch on again in Europe during the 17th century and started to spread to other parts of the world thoughout the century.
-
During the coinage act, the U.S formalized a currency system and appointed the U.S dollar the official currency of the U.S -
Gold was officially made the standard in England during this time. This meant that countries fixed the value of their currencies in terms of a specified amount of gold. In the U.S the gold standard act was enacted in the 1900 which helped the establishment of the central bank. -
A massive worldwide depression in the 1930’s marked the end of the Gold Standard. In the United States, the gold standard was revised and the price of gold was devalued. The British and international gold standards soon ended as well, and the complexities of international monetary regulation began. -
John Biggins created the first charge-it system. This allowed people to charge their money spend to one account and pay it off over time. However this resulted in and increased amount of debt and greatly contributed to the Depression. -
Confinity.com and X.com worked together and created Pay-pal, a way to transfer money to friends electronically. -
Bitcoin was invented by an unknown group of people going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is an cryptocurrency, which is a completely virtual form of money. This means that there are no banks involved with transactions. It can be used to buy merchandise anonymously, transfer money, or you can also “mine” bitcoins by using computers to solve complex math problems. -
Now we have multiple forms of currency all over the world. We have paper money, coins, and cards that allow us to pay for things. We also have things like Apple pay and Venmo which allow us to virtually pay for things.
