Alchemy of Wealth & Power

From ancient coins to Bitcoin, the story of money has really been about belief—how societies decide what has value, and in whom it bestows the trust to control it

- MOUSUMI ROY

The legend of King Midas, whose touch turned everything into gold, is more than a myth. It is a reminder of money's double-edged power — to create wealth, but also to distort values and relationships. From the first stamped coins in ancient Lydia to Bitcoin's digital code, money's journey has always been about something larger than currency. It is the story of trust, power, and who gets to define value.

Coins and the Birth of Trust The first great leap came in the 6^th century BCE, when Croesus, king of Lydia, began minting standardized gold and silver coins. Until then, barter or weighed metals facilitated trade. By producing coins of fixed purity and weight, Croesus created something revolutionary: a form of money that strangers could trust.

Greek city-states soon adopted coinage, transforming their agoras — marketplaces — into vibrant centers of commerce and civic life. Unlike tribute-based empires that extracted goods in kind, these monetary economies fostered contracts, taxation, and eventually democratic institutions. Trust in coinage became trust in a system.

Rome expanded this model across its empire. However, when Rome collapsed, so too did its monetary order. For centuries, Europe relied more on land and labor than on coins. The rebirth of money came with the rise of merchants, bankers, and long-distance trade in the medieval era.