(CHIRPING, TWITTERING)
Oh, hello, good sir.
I'd like to do a trade.
How does two of your finest goats in exchange for, um...
..oh, this mystery box sound?
Yeah?
Mystery.
Back in the very, very early days of civilisation,
currency came in the form of...
..well, whatever you had
that could be swapped.
It was known as bartering.
Of course, bartering had its downsides.
First of all, you had to find someone
who actually wanted what you had to trade,
and hope they had something you wanted in return.
And it meant you could only make that trade
when you had your goods in hand.
What?
What do you mean you don't want my mystery box?
You'd prefer a cow? (MOOING)
But I don't have a cow.
That's where money comes in.
Although it didn't look like the stuff we use today.
Whale teeth, barley, feathers, shells,
even cows were all used as money or currency
in different parts of the world.
It meant, instead of swapping things directly,
you could exchange something that everyone agreed was valuable.
What if I give you these shells, and you can go buy yourself a cow
from Bruce down the road?
We all agree shells are valuable, right?
(MOOING)
But of course shells are only valuable
if you don't live near a beach...
You keep dropping them.
..and, eventually, people started making coins.
Most experts agree
that the first coins came from the Lydians.
They lived in this part of the world from 1200 BC to 564 BC
and came up with the idea of melting down precious metals
into flat roundish discs with designs on them,
aka coins.
I love them!
They're round, they're flat,
I can fit them in my pocket.
Oh, this one's made of chocolate.
(CHUCKLES) Weird.
Want some?
The coin craze caught on
and more and more countries started minting their own,
which made trade a lot easier
because the metal that made up the coins was valuable everywhere,
no matter whose head was printed on it.
Although carrying around large amounts of coins could be...
..well, heavy.
Don't help. It's all good.
Which brings us to paper money.
The first forms of paper money
were introduced by the Tang dynasty in China in the seventh century.
And Marco Polo - no, not the game you play in a pool,
but the European explorer -
spread the idea throughout Europe.
The pieces of paper, known as promissory notes,
were kind of like IOUs.
So, what you're telling me is that all your money
is at a merchant's house,
but you can offer me this piece of paper that states how many coins
you owe me, and I can redeem them at a later date.
Well, I mean, that sounds legit. Sure, OK.
Of course, these days, money looks very different.
It's not based on the value of this metal or any metal.
Instead, the value of currencies is determined by governments
and banks and international trade,
which brings us to cryptocurrencies.
The first cryptocurrency popped up in 2008.
You've probably heard of it before.
Bitcoin?
Each bitcoin is a hugely complicated piece of computer code
that's hard to create and can't be copied,
which some people reckon makes it a perfect currency.
Over the years, Bitcoin has been joined
by heaps of other cryptocurrencies,
like Ethereum and Dogecoin,
which started as a joke, got popular,
and then dropped in value when this guy said this.
So, it's a hustle. (LAUGHTER)
Yeah, it's a hustle. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
You see, unlike our dollars, the values of cryptocurrencies
aren't regulated, and they're worth whatever people want to pay for them,
and some reckon they're a bit of a fad.
But who knows what the future of currency will hold?
Alright, that'll be two bitcoins and $20,
which you can transfer directly,
or I could get one of those little tap-and-go machines
that you attach to your phone.