At first glance, money is just a medium of exchange. But behind this simple concept lies a complex evolution, from shells to digital tokens. To understand why cryptocurrency is not just a trend, but a logical stage in the development of finance, let's look into the history of money.

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🐚 Before paper money: everything that had value

When there were no centralized currencies, people used:

cowrie shells,

salt,

tobacco,

cattle,

silver and gold.

Such 'natural money' had intrinsic value. It was bartering plus a universal measure of value that everyone recognized.

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🧾 How jewelers invented paper money

In the Middle Ages, the wealthy stored their gold with jewelers — they had reliable safes. In return, they received receipts — a document confirming that the jeweler had gold.

Gradually, people began to pay with receipts, without cashing in gold. These papers became the first trust-based money.

Later, states picked up the idea: banknotes backed by gold appeared — this was called the gold standard.

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🇺🇸 Dollar and the abandonment of the gold standard

Until 1971, the US dollar could be exchanged for gold — each printed dollar had material backing.

But with the abandonment of the gold standard, everything changed.

Currently, dollars are backed by nothing but trust in the US economy. At the same time, the Federal Reserve (Fed) can print new dollars in unlimited quantities, especially in times of crisis — which leads to inflation and devaluation.

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🪙 And what about cryptocurrencies?

Against this backdrop, the idea of decentralized money — cryptocurrencies — was born. They:

are independent of banks and states,

operate on the basis of blockchain,

have a limited supply.

For example:

Bitcoin (BTC) — a maximum of 21 million coins;

YFI (Yearn Finance) — a total of 36,666 tokens;

XRP — a fixed supply of 100 billion coins, and no new ones are issued;

MASK — limited to 100 million coins.

Unlike the dollar, which is printed every day, these cryptocurrencies cannot be "reprinted" at will — and this protects against inflation.

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🔗 Money = trust

Once people trusted gold. Then — banks and governments. Today, a new generation is emerging that chooses to trust code, blockchain, and decentralization.

Cryptocurrencies are not just a digital replacement for the dollar. They are a new perspective on what money is and how it should work in the internet age.