Paper money was born in China

Paper money was not born in Europe, but in China, centuries before the West imagined it.

During the Song dynasty, around the eleventh century, merchants began to use paper certificates instead of hauling heavy metal coins. The state eventually issued its own, backed by its authority. When the traveler Marco Polo saw it, centuries later, it struck him as almost a feat of alchemy: the emperor turned paper into wealth simply by stamping a seal on it.

Here lies the key to almost all modern money: a bill is not worth anything because of the material it is made of, but because we trust that others will accept it. Paper money is, above all, a story of shared trust.

Source: The British Museum