-
@ Nico Sobrino
2025-05-08 16:33:58
How long has money existed?
When people are asked how long money has been around, most respond with something like 400 years, maybe 1,000 or 2,000 at most. But the truth is, we have no idea when it was invented—because we’ve never found a civilization that didn’t use it. Which leads us to one clear conclusion: money is as old as civilization itself.
Take writing, for example. The earliest forms we know—like hieroglyphs or cuneiform—weren’t about religion or philosophy. They were about money. They were accounting books, records of debts, payments, exchanges. The first words ever written by humans were numbers and names, organizing who owed what to whom. Money isn’t just as old as writing—it’s what motivated its invention.
And if we go even further back, we find traces of money in the Stone Age. Shells, feathers, rare stones. Objects used as a medium of exchange. We don’t know if money predates the wheel, but we do know that wheels were also used as money. Anything scarce, portable, and recognizable could serve that role.
Even primates can learn to use money. There are studies where they’re taught to trade objects for food, and once they grasp the logic, they begin adapting to the new system. What matters is not the object itself, but what it represents.
Money has no value by itself. It’s a language. A tool to communicate value. To coordinate efforts, establish relationships, build social networks. And as a language, it’s a fundamental technology. Probably as ancient as language itself.
#Bitcoin isn’t just a new currency. It’s a new form of money.
Software development has allowed us to create a product that meets the essential characteristics of money.
An upgrade to this millennia-old technology that has accompanied humans since the very beginning.