The gold standard
This led to the birth of the gold standard. Back then, the banknotes themselves didn't hold any intrinsic value, such as gold and silver coins do. Instead, paper money was backed by precious metals (such as gold and silver), stored in a treasury vault somewhere, such as Fort Knox. The banknotes represented the right to collect those precious metals from a bank. This was more convenient than taking a wheelbarrow of gold bullion to the post office to pay the mortgage!
This was the case until 1944. At the end of World War II, yet another related system was introduced under the Bretton Woods agreement, which was the gold exchange standard. This meant that many countries fixed their national currencies' exchange rates to the ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access