DeFi and the Future of Finance

IITHE ORIGINS OF MODERN DECENTRALIZED FINANCE

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FINANCE

Even as today's financial system is plagued with inefficiencies, it is far better than those of the past, where market exchanges were peer to peer and bartering required two parties' needs to match exactly. Out of this, an informal credit system emerged in villages whereby people kept a mental record of “gifts.”¹

Modern coinage came much later, first emerging in Lydia around 600 BCE and providing what we think of as today's functions of money: unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. Important characteristics of money included durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, limited supply, acceptability, and stability. Bank notes, originating in China, made their way to Europe in the thirteenth century.

Nonphysical transfer of money originated in 1871 with Western Union. Figure 2.1 shows a copy of an early transfer for $300. Notice how the fees amount to $9.34, or roughly 3 percent. It is remarkable that so little has changed in 150 years: money transfers are routinely more expensive, and credit card fees are 3 percent.

Figure 2.1 Western Union transfer from 1873

Source: Western Union Holdings, Inc.

The last 75 years has seen many firsts in the financial world: credit card in 1950 (Diners Club); automated teller machine (ATM) in 1967 (Barclays Bank); telephone banking in 1983 (Bank ...