In this series of episodes of Emerge Dynamics we’re diving into a new, highly relevant topic: Web 3.0. The next level of the internet and how it influences transactions is going to have a large impact on business owners everywhere. Within this evolution, you’ll hear other possibly new terms such as blockchain, decentralized finance, smart contracts, and more.

With all these forthcoming changes, it’s important to know where you need to focus so you can emerge from your peers.

We start this series with a couple of episodes about what money is and what some of its shortcomings might be in today’s world. We’ll then bring this to a conclusion by explaining why a business owner of manager needs to understand this.

In a well-functioning society, you don’t typically need to understand how money works on a deep level. However, with this evolution, it’s important to know the state of money in the world and how it’s changing to support your business.

In earlier times, humans got what they needed via direct exchange: bread for cheese, clothes for shoes, one good for another. While it seems simpler on the surface, there were a lot of problems with this system. We then shifted to indirect exchange by using another medium—money—to acquire goods.

In order to be most effective, money has to be salable across space and time. Money is intended to serve three functions: be a medium of exchange, retain store value (not rot or die), and be a unit of account. Our conversation today focuses on the store of value function and how today’s money starts to lose this ability as more and more of it is created.

After thousands of years, humans shifted to using silver and gold as units of money. And then gold and silver were used for thousands of years and for very good reasons. Gold is almost indestructible, difficult to create, and it’s very rare, making it the top choice to use for exchange at this time. Part two of this series will pick up and take the discussion to where we stand with money today.

Here is the link to The Bitcoin Standard which is the book we reference as we walk through the history of money: https://academy.saifedean.com/product/tbs-hardcover/