WCP: The Internet, The World Wide Web, Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency

How does Bitcoin get its value? In the same way that all “money” gets value.  Supply and Demand; Circulation and Usage; Acceptance and Trust.

Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of American Indians.

Wampum was used by the northeastern Indian tribes as a form of gift exchange, and the colonists adopted it as currency in trading with them. Eventually, the colonists developed more efficient methods of producing wampum, which caused inflation and ultimately the obsolescence of it as currency.

According to “The Origins Of Money” by Nick Szabo “Between 1637 and 1661, wampum became legal tender in New England. Colonists now had a liquid medium of exchange, and trade in the colonies flourished [without using Britain’s Fiat Money].

The beginning of the end of wampum came when the British started shipping more coin to the Americas, and Europeans started applying their mass-manufacturing techniques [to the production of wampum]. By 1661, British authorities had thrown in the towel, and decided it would pay in coin of the realm – which being real gold and silver, and its minting audited and branded by the Crown, had even better monetary qualities than shells. In that year wampum ceased to be legal tender in New England.”