8th grade. Unit 3. Lesson 1. The history of money: from barter to bitcoin

👉Communicative area: speaking about the history of money

👉Active vocabulary: currency, wallet, banknotes, credit cards, coins, to pay cash, to pay by credit card, ATM (cash mashine), exchange rate, trade, cryptocurrency

Money is what people use to buy things and services. Most countries have their own currency, such as the Belarusian ruble, or the British pound. A state or a government prints banknotes and makes coins at a mint (монетный двор). 

Money has been a part of human history for almost 3,000 years. A long time ago, people did not buy or sell with money. Instead, they traded (продавали, торговали) one thing for another to get what they wanted or needed. One person who owned many cows could trade with another person who owned much wheat. Later other things, such as jewellery and spices, that were easier to carry around than cows, became valuable trade items. 

But people needed valuable things that could last a long time. That’s how money was invented. The first country in the world to make metal coins was called Lydia (located in what is now known as Turkey). The first coins appeared during the 7th century BC and were made of precious (ценный) metal and were stamped with a picture of a lion. This idea soon spread to the rest of the world. Coins were all made to the same size and shape. In some parts of the world, different things were used as money, like shells or blocks of salt. 

After using coins for hundreds of years, people started to use paper money as a promise to pay in coin, much like an “I.O.U.”(I Owe (быть должным) You) note. The first true paper money was used in China in the 10th century AD. The idea of paper money was brought to Europeans by Marco Polo in 1290 AD. But banknotes became popular in Europe only at the end of the 17th century. Paper money was great for business because it could be produced in large amounts without relying on such metals as gold and silver.

The first credit card was invented in 1946 by John Biggins. Since that time it has become a very popular means (средство) of payment and many people prefer to pay by credit card rather than pay in cash. But don’t worry, if you need to take out some cash, there are ATMs on every continent on Earth. There is even one in Antarctica. 

Today, most of what people think of as money is not even things you can hold. In fact, only 8% of the world’s currency is the actual physical money. The rest is numbers in bank accounts1, saved in computer memory. More and more people use an e-wallet, a type of electronic card which is used for making payments online through a computer or a smartphone. However, many people still feel more comfortable using coins and paper money and do not totally trust using electronic money. 

However, the digital world is changing all the time and new ways of paying for things in the digital world are appearing. No one knows who invented the first cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, was introduced in 2009. In March 2010 the exchange rate of 1 Bitcoin to the dollar was $0.003. Just imagine, seven years later it rose up to $19,783.06, but then it fell again to $3,242 in December 2018. What do you think money will look like in the future?

Read the text again and say what the following words refer to.