Researched
Money
Money as common medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value: from shells and silver weights to Lydia's coins (~600 BC).
Open in the interactive tree →As early as the 3rd millennium BC, Mesopotamians reckoned in silver weights (shekels) and barley. Lydia struck the first known coins from electrum around 600 BC; China developed paper money (jiaozi) around 1000 AD. Money lowers transaction costs and makes prices comparable, the precondition for markets, taxes and credit.
Prerequisites
- Trade & Division of Labor~7000 BC
- Metallurgy (Bronze, Iron)~2500 BC
- Weights & Standard Measures~2500 BCMetal money was valued by standard weights, from Mesopotamian silver shekels onwards
Unlocks
- Paper Money~1000
- Banks & Double-Entry Bookkeeping~1340-1494
- Central Bank & State Currency1694
- Economics1776
- Bretton Woods, IMF, World Bank1944
- Crypto & Stablecoin Rules2024-2026
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