Part 3/13:

The discussion then traverses the history of money, starting with barter economies. Early societies used tangible items like shells, beads, gold, and other commodities as representations of economic energy—an expression of human effort, time, and innovation.

Hard money, such as gold, historically represented this energy well because of its scarcity and difficulty to produce, making it a stable medium of exchange and store of value. However, gold had limitations, notably the challenge of verifying authenticity and the inconvenience of portability.