Shells are shellfish that grow in tropical and subtropical shallow seas. Because they are small and exquisite, brightly colored, durable, moderate in size, easy to carry, and easy to count, with the development of social economy and the transformation of commodity society, Formed, natural shellfish gradually served as the general equivalent of commodity exchange.

There was no currency during the time of the ancient emperors. In ancient times, human life was mainly about fishing in the water, hunting in the mountains, living in caves in the wild, eating hair and drinking blood. Cooked food was only known after the Sui people invented drilling wood to make fire. This stage was the age of fishing and hunting. In the farming era when Fuxi wrote Bagua and made deeds, and Shennong taught people to grow grains and raise five animals, a market was set up, with the middle of the day as the market, trading and withdrawal, and everyone had their own place.

Currency has already appeared since the Xia Dynasty, but the currency at that time was mainly shell coins. During the Yao and Shun periods before the Xia Dynasty, natural shells had changed from decorations to fixed coins, together with beads, Jade, knives, cloth, Ku, Yu and copper coins are used in parallel.

Since then, until the Bronze Age, money has been made of bronze. Most of the coins that appeared during this period were made of bronze. Entering the Bronze Age of the Xia Dynasty, currency emerged as a means of exchanging, preserving, and calculating wealth. It has been 5,000 years since the advent of currency.

Extended information:

The history of mankind and the history of currency are relatively similar, and both have gone through five stages.

The first stage: exchanging things for things. That is the physical currency stage. Most human beings at this stage are in primitive societies, because there is no unified culture or unified weights and measures, but they all have the same physiological needs. So the relationship between tribes is probably barter, using my stone tools in exchange for your prey. Gradually, commodities of equal value appeared, such as shells, cloth, clothing, livestock, etc.

The second stage: gold and silver bar stage. As tribes grew and the scope of human activities expanded, the exchanges between humans gradually increased. They found that bartering could no longer meet their daily needs. Because grain, livestock, shells, etc. have natural defects, either there are too many of them or they are difficult to preserve.

Human beings began to look for rare items as equivalent exchanges. It was at this time that gold and silver established their historical status. At this stage, humans broke away from primitive society and began to gradually form large tribes, and even the prototype of a country appeared.

The third stage: coinage stage. Human civilization at this stage has developed vigorously and entered the feudal society stage. The empire controlled the production of coins and the lifeblood of the economy. People found that gold and silver bars were difficult to measure, so the empire minted a unified currency to make transactions fairer. Human civilization can continue to develop.

The fourth stage: paper currency stage. Paper money appeared in our country very early, but basically paper money cannot be circulated because there was no anti-counterfeiting technology in ancient times. Therefore, the real paper money appeared after the steam revolution. Humanity entered the industrial stage and was completely freed from heavy labor. Since then, science and technology have advanced rapidly, and human society has entered a highly civilized state. Feudal rule and imperialism reached their final stage and finally disappeared.

The fifth stage: electronic currency stage. This has been a stage of development for ten years. Now people almost don’t carry cash when they go out. Complete the transaction with just one tap on your phone. This is of epoch-making significance in human history. The virtualization of currency also means that human beings have officially entered the stage of interconnection between virtual society and real society. This was unimaginable before.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Bei Coin

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