Money has taken many forms through the ages, from physical forms such as stones or shells to dematerialised bits and bytes. Money in itself has no value apart from being a medium of exchange and a unit of measurement.
Bartering most likely predated money with easily traded items like animal skins, and weapons evolving to be a type of currency. Salt, which was a necessity in hot climates, has been used for barter and a form of currency for centuries. The word salary comes from the Latin salarium, which was the money paid to Roman soldiers to buy salt.
The introduction of money in the form of coins brought a measure of standardisation to transactions. Coins in a form familiar to us today were introduced in the region of Lydia (today Western Turkey). In 600 B.C., Lydia’s King Alyattes minted the first official currency, the coins being made from electrum, a mixture of silver and gold.
The next significant development in the history of money was the introduction of paper money in around 700 B.C., when the Chinese moved from coins to paper money. The widespread adoption of paper money in the Western world in the 1600s, certainly made life a lot easier, obviating the need for lugging around sacks of metal.
Shortly after the end of World War II, the world’s first charge card was introduced. Though limited in scope compared to today’s credit cards, these cards became increasingly popular and led to the introduction of ATMs and debit cards. With the introduction of the World Wide Web, electronic money and payment services were introduced and today we do not need anything physical, just a stream of 0’s and 1’s, bits, and bytes to transact business.
Before cryptocurrency there was M-PESA, a phone-based money-transfer system created in Kenya by mobile provider Safaricom. Some ninety percent of Kenyans lack bank accounts, and M-PESA is used to deposit funds and transfer them to others as payments, at parity with the Kenyan shilling, with low transaction costs. M-PESA does not require cards or terminals, instead it uses the ubiquitous mobile phone. This use of everyday, readily available technology was key to the widespread adoption of M-PESA. Mobile Payments are being adopted increasingly rapidly in both emerging and developed markets, providing access to digital financial services as a low-cost alternative to a traditional payment and bank infrastructure.
Popular forms of cryptocurrency are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Unlike other forms […]
