In the olden days, people lived together and helped each other however they could. Days of prosperity would follow. People would come to have things in excess. Many of these things: bananas, wheat, apples, etc., were perishable, and easily spoiled. People thought about this, and figured out a way to harness the value of their labor into something more permanent: rare metal, fashioned in a form that could be comfortably transported from one place to another and stored easily. Thus, in 700 BC, the first coins would be minted in the Lydian Kingdom of Asia Minor.
A point would be reached where two distinct methods of trade could be used: with convertible coins, for daily use; and with non-convertible (or less-frequently convertible) assets, where greater value is stored in smaller volumes or in so-called ‘valuables’ (securities, gold bars, works of art, and – in more recent times – patents and computer programs). Unfortunately, every good thing runs the risk of being falsified, presented as a bad thing, or distorted beyond recognition. In the begining, the coin expressed the amount of labor invested at the time the effort was applied. For example: a man harvests two bananas, eats one, and sells the other, hoping that the next time he is hungry he would be able to buy a banana and eat it. Yes, that has been true for a very long time, but as we know, humans are easily tempted.
Some people started working harder, accumulating “spare” coins. The climate was changeable and the harvests were not the same every year. Converting surpluses into something permanent became necessary for the survival and prosperity of one’s family. As people say, “savings for a rainy day”. That’s all well in theory, in practice – not so much…
As money measures the amount of work done, we can imagine that not all members of society are hardworking and thrifty. It turns out that robbing frugal people is a very easy way for someone to change their value and position in society. Subsequently, the “money-grabbers” take steps to accumulate more money and, through this, more power. The centralization of power allows for a more complete and thorough plundering of the population. Taxes and inflation are introduced (with the latter, money begins to lose its percentage consituted from gold, until on the eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire, ‘gold coins’ were in fact only thinly gold-plated coins made of lead). Because of these inflationary processes, people used to bite the coin to verify its worth.
Poor little coin!
The accumulation of money continued, but so were there developed myriad methods of counterfeiting it, and disassociating the coin from the very reason for its existence. This has been the case even since Roman times, when the money was called FIAT (from Latin, translating as ‘SO BE IT’); thus, the worth of a coin was based on the consent between the dealers about its value, rather than on its real value (the work needed to produce the coin). This change in the valuation of money led to new opportunities for speculation, and for plundering of the populations of other countries due to the latters’ inability to claim the value of their currency (the values of countries’ currencies are assigned through common agreements and secretive arrangements between the powers of the day). Per imperial principles, the various body politic examples of parliaments have become specialised in plundering their populations, masking the act under promises to care for their citizens. These promises make very good pre-election speeches, but they have no practical meaning.
Why? Because for the duration of a person’s life, the machinery of government will completely impoverish them and, with some small exceptions, will lead them to destitution. Is it any wonder, then, that more recently there have begun to appear interesting new coins, constituted of a series of numbers and signs. These new coins are called cryptocurrencies: apocryphal coins. As the name implies, something illegal is hinted at, something that the government cannot deal with (as they cannot be regulated or governed according to somebody’s interests). The irony is that the corrupt, rigid system has become fossilised to such an extent that the only way out of the resultant situation is through its destruction.
New systems are always the regrowth pushing up through the decay of the old ones. The concept of the coin is now undergoing transformation. We know, historically, that when we cannot find a way forward, we have to look back – “axes for salt” (a Bulgarian idiom for barter, for natural economy). As we cannot calculate the value of things due to the disassociation of the coin from real value, we will need to restore the real value by associating it with a currency that is not artificially adjustable, and ensure the selling price is determined only by the consent between the seller and the buyer, without third-party intervention or additional hidden taxes, tariffs and charges.
It is time to change our attitude towards our money, and to start thinking of it as part of our labour and our efforts to survive.
Let us pray for the long and successful life, and undeterred financial health, of these newborn cryptocoins. Amen!
Written on 10.12.2019