Money Is Actually Just Technology Geld ist eigentlich nur Technologie El dinero no es más que tecnología Il denaro è in realtà solo tecnologia 돈은 사실 기술에 불과합니다 Geld is eigenlijk gewoon technologie Pieniądze to tak naprawdę tylko technologia O dinheiro é, na verdade, apenas tecnologia Деньги - это всего лишь технология Para Aslında Sadece Teknolojidir Гроші - це насправді лише технологія 金錢其實只是技術

Hey smart people, Joe here.

How much money to do you have?

Don't worry, this isn't a patreon thing… (but we're on Patreon now)

Anyway, seriously…count your gold. |no joke|||

…or your silver, or your Benjamins, or maybe even your rai stones if we have any fans from ||silver coins|||dollars|||||rai stones|rai stones|||||supporters| ... of je zilver, of je Benjamins, of misschien zelfs je rai-stenen als we fans hebben van ...або ваше срібло, або ваші Benjamins, або, можливо, навіть ваші камені rai, якщо у нас є шанувальники з них.

the Pacific island of Yap. |Pacific|land surrounded by water||Yap Island la isla de Yap, en el Pacífico.

How much ya got? |||tem

There's a lot of ways to store your moolah, from the mattress to mutual funds, gold bars ||||||||money|||under the mattress||investment funds|investment options|| Hay muchas maneras de guardar el dinero, desde el colchón hasta los fondos de inversión, pasando por lingotes de oro...

or Venmo, but I'm willing to bet good money that your money is just, like, numbers in |payment app||||||||||||||| o Venmo, pero estoy dispuesto a apostar buen dinero que su dinero es sólo, como, números en of Venmo, maar ik ben bereid om goed geld te verwedden dat jouw geld gewoon getallen is in

some computer database. |computer database|computer database

And I recently found myself wondering: who says those bits and bytes are worth real money? |||||thinking about||||data||data units||||

I mean, the Amazons and Walmarts of the world are perfectly happy when you tell your computer |||Amazon||retail giants|||||||||||

to tell the stores' computers to tell MasterCard's computers to move that so-called “money” |||||||MasterCard's|||||||

around for you.

But how did we get from hoarding and exchanging gold to a world of 0's and 1's being shoved ||||||storing||trading||||||||||forced into place Pero ¿cómo hemos pasado de atesorar e intercambiar oro a un mundo de 0 y 1 que se meten a empujones?

around by algorithms? ||algorithms used

The truth is that money has always been sort of imaginary—from people agreeing to agree ||||||||||conceptual construct|||consensus||consensus

that two lumps of silver are definitely worth a goat, or some scribbling totally means you're ||pieces|||||||great|||writing||| ||||||||||||uma anotação||| que dos trozos de plata valen definitivamente una cabra, o algunos garabatos significan totalmente que estás

rich to today's crypto cyberstacks. ||current|currency|crypto platforms ricas a las criptocadenas actuales. rijk aan de crypto-cyberstacks van vandaag.

And at every step along the way, from clay tablets to Bitcoin, it turns out that these ||||||||clay tablets|clay tablets||digital currency|||||

shared delusions of value didn't just come from social and political forces. |beliefs|||||||societal|||influences Los delirios de valor compartidos no sólo procedían de fuerzas sociales y políticas.

It was technology that made money possible.

[OPEN]

Say I'm a Mesopotamian farmer. |||from Mesopotamia|agricultural worker

My wheat crop is kinda wimpy this year, so my neighbor Inkishush helps me out. |wheat crop|plantation||sort of|weak|||||neighbor named Inkishush|Inkishush (neighbor)||| |trigo|colheita de trigo|||fraca|||||vizinho|Inkishush||| Mi cosecha de trigo es un poco débil este año, así que mi vecino Inkishush me ayuda. Mijn tarweoogst is dit jaar een beetje slap, dus mijn buurman Inkishush helpt me.

He needs some wool, and I owe him a favor, so I send some over. |||wool yarn|||owe him|||||||| |||lã|||devo|||||||| Necesita lana y le debo un favor, así que le envío un poco. Hij heeft wat wol nodig, en ik ben hem een gunst schuldig, dus ik stuur wat.

Everyone's happy. Everyone is|

But that didn't involve any money. |||require||

Just the exchange of gifts, or maybe barter. ||giving of||presents|||trade goods |||||||escambo

Easy!

But say his crop comes a few months before my sheep get fluffy enough. ||||||||||sheep's wool||woolly| |||colheita|||||||ovelhas||fofa o suficiente|

Tracking who owes you over time is hard! Tracking||owes||||| Acompanhamento||te deve|||||

And it's even harder if Inkishush insists my wool has to be just as nice as his wheat ||||||insists||wool|||||||||wheat ||||||||lã|||||||||trigo

or he'll club me. |he will|club| o me golpeará.

If only there were some technology that could help you record who owes who what… ||||||||||||deve|| Si existiera alguna tecnología que te ayudara a registrar quién debe a quién qué...

The earliest forms of writing were all about accounting. |earliest|||writing||||accounting Las primeras formas de escritura tenían que ver con la contabilidad.

At first, people recorded actual wheat and wool or whatever, but eventually people started |||recorded||wheat|||||||| |||||trigo||lã||||||

recording all their debts in standardized units of account. recording|||debts||standardized|||

The way we have standard units like meters or degrees, early accounting used units like ||||standard|||||||||| De la misma manera que tenemos unidades estándar como metros o grados, la contabilidad primitiva utilizaba unidades como

cowry shells or shekels of grain. cowry|shells||shekels||grain cápsulas de||||| cáscaras de cauri o siclos de grano. kaurischelpen of sikkels graan.

Writing debts down in standard units serves one of the main functions of money: it lets ||||||serves|||||||||

you store value, or save up favors to cash in later. ||||save||favors||cash|| almacenas valor, o ahorras favores para canjearlos más tarde. ви зберігаєте цінність або накопичуєте послуги, щоб отримати їх пізніше.

And when you do want to cash in, money gives you a medium of exchange— a convenient way ||||||||||||medium|||||

of swapping what you have for something you want. |exchanging|||||||

Just record some new numbers in your ledgers, and as long as everyone trusts what's written, ||||numbers|||ledgers||||||trusts||

now you both agree on a new amount of imaginary value that each owes the other.

Boom!

That's money.

And it's actually why writing was invented!

I want to pause to stress how mind-blowing this is: money literally is accounting! |||pause|||||blowing||||||

It's just a way to agree on how much value someone has stored up and how to exchange

it later for actual stuff.

Yes, I just called accounting “mind blowing”. Sí, acabo de llamar a la contabilidad "alucinante".

Finally, you accountants out there get to claim some cool points. ||accountants|||||||| Por último, los contables pueden reclamar algunos puntos.

But when we think of early money, we tend to think of commodity money—physical objects ||||||||||||commodity|||objects

that are useful, like rice grains, or pretty, like gold coins. ||||rice|grains|||||coins

It lets you store value by…

literally storing it, and then exchange it by, well, exchanging the actual physical objects. |storing|||||||||||| |||||||||trocando||||

But using commodity money means you have to make commodity money, which is solved by production |||||||||||||resolved||production

technologies–like smelting. technologies|| ||fundição

But it also creates a more subtle technological problem: trust.

If your trading partner gives you a payment object—like, a coin—how can you be sure

that it is what they say it is?

Sure, it looks shiny, but how do you know Inkishush or Erasmus or Giovanni didn't |||brilhante|||||||||||

dilute the metal? dilute|| diluir||

To solve that problem, people invented touchstones: chunks of rock on which you'd scrape both ||||||touchstones|pieces|||on|||scrape| ||||||pedras de toque|||||||raspar| Om dat probleem op te lossen, hebben mensen toetsstenen uitgevonden: brokken steen waarop je beide zou schrapen

real gold and the coin you were offered. |||||||offered

The streaks would be different if the coin was impure. |streaks||||||||impure |faixas||||||||

A better solution was minted coins. ||||minted|

A government could guarantee a coin's purity by stamping their official seal on a lump |government||||coin|||stamping||official||||lump Un gobierno podía garantizar la pureza de una moneda estampando su sello oficial en un bulto.

of metal.

And milled or reeded edges—those little ridges you see on coins? |milled||reeded|edges|||ridges|||| ¿Y los bordes fresados o escariados, esas pequeñas crestas que se ven en las monedas? En gefreesde of rieten randen - die kleine ribbels die je op munten ziet?

They could prevent anyone from secretly shaving off some extra gold for themselves. ||stop|||secretly|shaving|||||| Podrían impedir que alguien se sacara en secreto algo de oro extra para sí mismo.

These technologies let people trust money enough to trade it. ||||||||trade|

But commodity money has a problem: Get too much, and it's a pain to carry around. ||||||||||||pain|||

So people started storing their big piles of heavy metal in temples and banks, which |||||||||||temples||banks|

gave them paper receipts that they could cash in later. |||receipts||||||

It was a form of representative money—written notes with no intrinsic value promising that |||||representative|||notes|||intrinsic||promising| Era una forma de dinero representativo: billetes sin valor intrínseco que prometían que

whoever held one could exchange it later for the stuff with actual value. whoever||||||||||||

And as far back as 12th century China, some governments decided they could just declare |||||12th||||governments|decided||||declare

certain pieces of paper were worth something, even without shiny, valuable objects in a ||||||||||valuable|||

vault somewhere to back them up. vault|||back|| bóveda en algún lugar para respaldarlos.

You couldn't trade them in for gold, but neither could your neighbor, so everyone just No podías cambiarlos por oro, pero tampoco tu vecino, así que todo el mundo simplemente

agreed to pretend. agreed||to act as if

It became way more practical to carry these notes around instead of clay tablets or all ||||practical|||||||||||

that heavy metal, all thanks to technologies for writing, printing, and making paper.

So that's how old-school technologies made old-school money possible.

But in the 1800's, new technologies started to dramatically change how money was stored ||||||||dramatically|||||

and exchanged, starting with the telegraph. |exchanged||||telegraph

In 1872, Western Union set up a system where customers could “wire” money to other |Western|Union||||||customers||||| En 1872, Western Union creó un sistema por el que los clientes podían "transferir" dinero a otros países.

offices across the U.S. offices||||

Your grandma could give money to one office and that office would send a specially coded |grandma||||||office|||||||specially|coded

message to a district clearing house, which would verify the money had been handed over, |||district|clearing|house|||verify|||||given| mensaje a una cámara de compensación de distrito, que verificaría la entrega del dinero,

then send a second coded telegram to the receiving office telling them it was ok to give you |||||telegram|||receiving||telling|||||||

your birthday cash. |birthday|

For the first time, money could move faster than people!

Just five years later, more than 38,000 wire transfers were moving nearly $2.5 million |||||||transfers||||

around the country each year.

Fast forward to the 1960s and people were doing way more buying, particularly with these ||||||||||||especially|| En los años sesenta, la gente compraba mucho más, sobre todo con estas

newfangled credit card things, which quickly tell a merchant who to call to collect your newfangled|credit|card|||||||||||collect| novas tecnologias|||||||||||||| de las tarjetas de crédito, que indican rápidamente al comerciante a quién debe llamar para cobrar su tarjeta.

money later.

But every time a store needed to check a customer's credit card, they had to call on the phone |||||||||customer|||||||||

and someone had to manually check paper records. ||||manually|||records

Fortunately, electronic computers were just becoming a thing. |electronic||||becoming||

Ledgers could now be read by machines, so when someone called, banks could now let the ledgers|||||||||||||||

computers authorize card payments. |authorize||payments

And those magnetic strips let the merchant's machine automatically call the credit company's |||strips|||merchant's||||||company ||||||do comerciante|||||| Y esas bandas magnéticas permiten que la máquina del comerciante llame automáticamente a la compañía de crédito de

machine, taking more humans out of the process. máquina, eliminando más humanos del proceso.

Fewer people, fewer errors, and faster than ever. |||errors||||

But remember that money is about storing value too.

During the 60's, banks started installing other electronic computers that replaced punch |||||installing||||||punch cards

cards with magnetic disks or tapes that could hold tens of megabytes! cards|||disks||tapes||||||megabytes

Which is only a fraction of this video file… it was a different time.

Since the 70's, computerized financial data has just kept growing. |||computerized|financial||||kept|

In 2018 alone, payment networks processed nearly 370 billion transactions. |||networks||||transactions

Instead of finicky phone calls between glorified calculators, digital networks now whisk transactions ||finicky||calls||glorified|calculators||||execute| ||exigentes chamadas|||||||||| En lugar de delicadas llamadas telefónicas entre calculadoras glorificadas, las redes digitales ahora baten las transacciones.

to huge farms of mainframe computers that handle each one in a fraction of a second, ||farms||mainframe|||process|||||||| tot enorme boerderijen van mainframecomputers die elk in een fractie van een seconde afhandelen,

essentially 100% of the time.

Mainframes are the behemoths of the computer world. Mainframes|||behemoths|||| |||os gigantes|||| Los mainframes son los gigantes del mundo informático. Mainframes zijn de kolossen van de computerwereld.

Super-fast input and output, obscene amounts of disk space, and all sorts of extra machinery |||||obscene|||disk||||kinds|||

for extreme reliability and security. |extreme|reliability||security

Can't play Fortnite on ‘em, but they do have special error-correcting memory chips ||Fortnite|||||||||correcting|memory| ||Fortnite|||||||||||

that can even catch if a random cosmic ray switches a 0 to a 1 on some chip and changes ||||||random|cosmic|ray|changes||||||chip|| que incluso puede captar si un rayo cósmico aleatorio cambia un 0 a un 1 en algún chip y cambia

your $24 into $1048.

On top of that, sophisticated machine learning programs take just milliseconds to compare ||||sophisticated|||programs|||milliseconds||compare

my purchase against my past behavior and millions of other people's, and make sure this purchase |purchase||||behavior|||||people|||||

was really made by me, and not some Nigerian prince buying toy ponies with my stolen card ||||||||Nigerian|||toy|ponies|||stolen|

number.

Because I would never do that.

This technology all works so well, we hardly even think about it anymore.

And right about now I know what you're thinking… is he gonna talk about cryptocurrencies like ||||||||||||||cryptocurrencies|

Bitcoin because they're like, the future of money or something?

There's a lot of videos about the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies, but one thing that |||||||ins||outs||||||

makes them unique is that instead of one ledger of imaginary money kept by one person or multi-billion-dollar ||||||||ledger|||||||||multi||dollar

company in one place, everyone using the currency cooperates to keep one giant ledger of imaginary company|||||||currency|cooperates||||giant|||

money that lives somewhere in the cloooouds… ||||||clouds

But where traditional forms of money work by everyone trusting everyone else, cryptocurrencies |||||||||trusting|||

kind of work by no one trusting anyone else?

Everyone keeps a copy of tThe ledger of who has what, and only updates it is only updated |keeps||copy||the||||||||updates||||updated

after a bunch of computers have competed to solve really hard math puzzles designed to ||||||competed||||||puzzles||

make sure prove they haven'tno one has messed around with the records. ||||haven't|||||||

It's a new money technology without a middleman, which has some advantages for… certain things… |||||||middleman|||||||

and also if you don't trust your government, but at its heart it's still aboutit basically ||||||||||||||about it|

serves all the classical functions of money: storing and exchanging imaginary value via |||classical|||||||||through

the magic of accounting.

Of course, the role of technology is not all rainbows and ponies. |||role|||||||| Natuurlijk is de rol van technologie niet alleen maar regenbogen en pony's.

All this “progress” has made it much easier for someone to do real damage to your imaginary |||||||||||||damage|||

money by hacking into stores' treasure troves of credit card numbers and stealing them. ||hacking|||treasure|troves||||||stealing| ||||||cofres de tes||||||roubando| dinero pirateando el tesoro de números de tarjetas de crédito de las tiendas y robándolos.

On the whole, though, we can safely say technology is why money exists. ||||||safely||||||

Technology and invention, not just psychology or economic theories, have continuously made ||||||||theories||continuously| |e||||||||||

our use of money faster, more convenient, and more trustworthy—, even if it is all |||||||||trustworthy|||||

completely made up.

Stay Curious.