A History of Money
From commodity to code — the 20th-century transformations that made money what it is today, and why each one happened.
How money went from cattle and gold coins to pure code — the 20th-century journey through the gold standard, Weimar hyperinflation, Bretton Woods, the 1971 Nixon shock, electronic money, and the 2008 crisis that birthed Bitcoin.
You already know what money is. This course is the story of how it got there — and it’s wilder than any textbook lets on. Money isn’t a fixed thing handed down from on high; it’s a 5,000-year-old invention humanity keeps re-engineering under the pressure of war, trade imbalances, runaway inflation, and collapsing trust.
We zoom in on the 20th century, when money changed shape more violently than in all the millennia before it. Across five lessons you’ll trace:
- The gold standard — when a pound or a dollar was a fixed weight of metal, and how that golden chain both disciplined nations and dragged them into depression when it snapped.
- Weimar hyperinflation — World War I prints money off the gold leash, and 1923 Germany shows the world what a dying currency looks like: wheelbarrows of cash for a loaf of bread.
- Bretton Woods (1944) — the most ambitious monetary deal ever struck, where 44 nations pegged their currencies to the dollar and the dollar to gold, and invented the IMF and World Bank to police it.
- The 1971 Nixon shock — the Sunday night a TV broadcast quietly ended gold convertibility, launching the pure fiat era and floating exchange rates we still live in today.
- Electronic money — the eurodollar market, wire transfers, credit cards, and ATMs that turned cash into ledger entries.
- Bitcoin’s origins — after the 2008 financial crisis shattered trust in banks, the 2009 genesis block makes money-as-code real.
For each turn you’ll learn why the transformation happened and what was traded away — the foundation the whole finance ladder is built on. A capstone final exam proves the timeline stuck.
In this topic
- 1 From Commodity to the Gold Standard How money grew up: from cattle, salt and cowrie shells to Lydian coins, banknotes, and the classical gold standard that fixed exchange rates and disciplined world trade. 9 min
- 2 War, Gold, and the Weimar Inferno How WWI shattered the gold standard, what hyperinflation really is, and how Weimar Germany ended up burning marks for warmth — plus the fragile gold-exchange standard. 9 min
- 3 Bretton Woods: One Dollar to Rule Them All How 44 nations rebuilt money in 1944 — the dollar pegged to gold, everyone pegged to the dollar, the IMF and World Bank, 25 good years, and the Triffin crack. 9 min
- 4 The Nixon Shock & the Birth of Fiat How the 1971 Nixon shock closed the gold window, untethered the dollar, and launched the floating-fiat era — plus stagflation, Volcker, and inflation targeting. 9 min
- 5 Money Goes Electronic — and Then Code How money went from paper to database entries to cryptographic code (1971–2009): eurodollars, SWIFT, the double-spend problem, and Bitcoin's genesis block. 9 min
- 6 Final Exam: A History of Money The graded, locked capstone for A History of Money — commodity money and the gold standard, WWI and Weimar hyperinflation, Bretton Woods, the 1971 Nixon shock and fiat, and money going electronic then code. Score 70% to pass. 15 min
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