3 ms·

Good paper from the progenitor of the blockchain, Nick Szabo, positing that the first moneys emerged up to 75,000 years ago and possibly enabled Homo sapiens s

• cyberax 3y ago
  I seriously doubt that currency (a standardized medium of exchange) existed in prehistoric times. But barter economy certainly did, we have plenty of archeological evidence for it. Still, even the barter economy was used for mostly "optional" activities. People were not dependent on it for survival, a tribe could live just fine on their own, without trade.
  • Wytwwww 3y ago
    > currency (a standardized medium of exchange) That's a pretty recent innovation, standardized coins didn't appear until the 600s BC, barely 100-150 years or so prior to the Greco-Persian wars. Widescale international trade existed for 1000+ years prior to that as far as we know, you don't necessarily standardized money for that.
    • ben_w 3y ago
      I'm not sure why you're describing 600s BC as "recent"?
      • Wytwwww 3y ago
        Because we know that there were much older civilizations during the bronze age which relied on long distance international trade and at least their ruling classes were dependent on it for their survival.
    • ETH_start 3y ago
      Large scale international trade relied on standardized forms of money for thousands of years before the first coins were minted: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118