The PAYTECH Book

Money: A History of Gods and Codes

By Israel Cedillo Lazcano

The University of Edinburgh

The processes of innovation and diffusion unleashed by the introduction of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in monetary matters have generated heated debates and new theories on the origin, nature and evolution of money. Some of them try to find the origins of this socioeconomic technology in the biology of exchange by which different organisms obtain reciprocal benefits, while others try to project it to the future, arguing that innovations like Bitcoin will eventually be adopted as an international single currency. However, to develop a sound argument that could transcend the theorization efforts above, first we need to discuss an old but fascinating question.

What is Money?

When one thinks of money, the first ideas that come to mind are structured around terms such as “dollars”, “renminbis”, “pounds” and even “Bitcoins”. If one visits a collection of coins, the main objects that will be exhibited will reinforce these ideas; however, it is also possible to find other goods that people have used to conduct transactions, such as cowry shells, tea bricks and copper axes, among others. These collections show how money has evolved from one generation to the next, through a variety of different meanings and goods in different contexts, from sacred objects related to different banker gods to digital fictions ruled by codes.

Unfortunately, all the works on money that one can find around ...