Part 3: what is money?

How do people trade labor in a trusted society (family, tribe, Dunbar’s number). How can you trade outside of your tribe, with people you may never see again, or don’t trust? (Why reputation does not work with strangers, but money does) How did money originate? (A lot of protomoney and Bitcoin Standard stuff).

Why did gold outcompete and dominate as money - what specific properties?

(Scarcity, divisibility, portability, fungibility, durability, ease of verification (difficult to counterfeit)

Governments didn’t create money or give it value - gold (or silver) is what gave government money its value.

“Bitcoin isn’t backed by anything.”

Currency and “backing”.

Why was gold used to “back” currencies. (Something that is very easy and cheap to create, needs an anchor in the real world to keep the supply from growing, which destroys money)

What backs gold?

If alchemists had succeeded in transmuting lead into gold, would gold still work as money?