Yesterday I saw something funny worth writing more about: on a vending machine, it said: “insert CARD or MONEY”.

...being the nerd I am, I thought to myself, “cards are money...what a stupid vending machine”.

This sparked a huge new train of thought. So here is a quick rambling on money. (something I’ve thought a lot about)

Money is simply just another form of technology. And before we had cash, we used many other things (including sea shells, though not on the list):

As our technology continues to widely improve, money will only transform more and more.

• According to an October 2021 piece by Harvard Business Review, over 97% of money in circulation is from online transactions. (US dollars).
• So when the FED “prints dollars”, they’re actually just pumping out digital money on a computer. Times have changed, but our perception lags behind.

Money isn’t the only thing that’s been dematerialized though. Here are more examples:

• Communication: We can all now communicate at anytime, for (relatively) cheap and basically anywhere—as long as we have a smartphone (which now includes over 80% of the planet).

  • About a week ago, I sat down to grab lunch at a restaurant in Paris and literally had a meal with my uncle, dad, and 5 year old cousin Kai. CRAZY...

    

• Entertainment: with the rise of Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, etc. (all enabled by the internet + mobile phones), traditional TV media is now saying adios.

  • Ex: Joe Rogan now officially gets more daily views than ALL OF CNN...pretty nuts:

  

• The list goes on w/ information, photos, music, podcasts, scheduling, and much more

So now, money...what about crypto?

Cryptocurrency is a huge topic that’s impossible to fully cover here, but when it comes to money, it’s essentially just the next evolutionary “tool” for humanity.

Once we think of technology as just “tools”, things begin to make much more sense.

We can see that while digital payments (ex: Apple Pay) are much more convenient, physical coins still shouldn’t just be thrown away. (Still useful for that quick extra tip, right? idk...)

Well, cryptocurrency is basically just the next “tool” or “stage” in a much wider picture (the FULL HISTORY OF MONEY).