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Bills of exchange were privately issued by banks since the high middles ages in Europe and functioned a lot like dollars when convertability was still a thing.
by Symmetry 7y ago
Bills of exchange were privately issued by banks since the high middles ages in Europe and functioned a lot like dollars when convertability was still a thing. It's only relatively recently that they've been tightly controlled. they weren't in mass use like metal coinage was but they were essential to the re-establishment of long-range trade.
- nine_k 7y agoThey always finally had to be exchanged to gold. Current dollars have no such peg, hence inflation, "quantitative easing" and other things only possible with fiat money. No king ever dreamed of monetary power like that of FRS.