OUGD505 / STUDIO BRIEF 01 / HISTORY OF COINAGE

Money has been incorporated into human life in some form for around 3,000 years, and before this, it is assumed that bartering was the way to receive and sell goods and services, for example "if you help kill this animal for me, you can have this sword", this is most likely, if the person did not want to do this then the deal would have to be altered or forgotten.  The introduction of currency in society has helped to speed up this process.


In 1,000BC the Chinese stopped using the actual weapons etc to trade and created miniature versions of the goods with bronze which served to improve the efficiency of trading. The first actual minted coin was created in Lydia (Western Turkey).

The coins were made from electrum, a mixture of silver and gold that occurs naturally, and stamped with pictures that acted as denominations. This currency helped to increase the internal and external trade which in effect made it an extremely wealthy empire.

It was the Chinese who moved on from this to paper money,  and in the place of where the American bills say, "In God We Trust," the Chinese inscription warned, "All counterfeiters will be decapitated." Europeans still used coins until 1,600 

The shift to paper money in Europe increased the amount of international trade, banks and the bourgeoisie began buying currencies from other nations and created the first currency market. The stability of a particular monarchy or government affected the value of the country's currency and the ability for that country to trade on an increasingly international market. "The competition between countries often led to currency wars, where competing countries would try to affect the value of the competitor's currency by driving it up and making the enemy's goods too expensive, by driving it down and reducing the enemy's buying power (and ability to pay for a war), or by eliminating the currency completely."

Mobile payments and virtual currency was birthed in the 21st century. "A mobile payment is money rendered for a product or service through a portable electronic device such as a cell phone, smartphone or PDA." You can send money to family and friends easily through a digital device, making it a lot easier and quicker to exchange currencies than ever before.

"Bitcoin​, invented in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, became the gold standard--so to speak--for virtual currencies. Virtual currencies have no physical coinage. The appeal of virtual currency is it offers the promise of lower transaction fees than traditional online payment mechanisms and is operated by a decentralized authority, unlike government issued currencies."

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