Money & Markets

82 advances: 78 achieved, 2 at the frontier now, 2 ahead.

The frontier

• 0DTE options boom 2022 · frontier
  Daily SPX expirations from 2022; about half of SPX volume by 2023.
• Anti–money laundering 2022 · frontier
  Activities and regulations to prevent and detect money laundering. News outlets reported the first fully self-supervised anti–money laundering AI software using contemporary suboptimal datasets, LaundroGraph.
• Honest money and deep capital markets · future · progress: demonstrated
  Sound money and cheap, honest long-term credit that can fund moonshots. Historic usury bans were drift; so is predatory debt.
• Policy prediction markets and forecasting · future · progress: demonstrated
  Markets and forecasting tournaments that aggregate dispersed knowledge about policy outcomes.

How we got here

• Bitcoin Law in El Salvador 2021 · achieved
  El Salvador legislation. El Salvador passed the Bitcoin Law, making it the first country to give cryptocurrency and bitcoin a status of legal tender.
• NFT speculation bubble 2021 · achieved
  NFT mania, 2021.
• SPAC boom 2020 · achieved
  Blank-check listings surged in 2020–21.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) 2018 · achieved
  Lending and exchanges on smart contracts.
• Crypto perpetual futures 2016 · achieved
  BitMEX perpetual swap, 2016.
• UPI instant payments 2016 · achieved
  India's Unified Payments Interface, 2016.
• Ethereum and smart contracts 2015 · achieved
  Launched July 2015.
• Stablecoins 2014 · achieved
  Tether launched 2014; US GENIUS Act 2025.
• Bitcoin and blockchain 2009 · achieved
  Satoshi's whitepaper, 2008; launched 2009.
• 2008 financial crisis 2008 · achieved
  Securitized mortgage leverage collapsed.
• Quantitative easing 2008 · achieved
  Central bank bond buying at scale.
• M-Pesa 2007 · achieved
  Safaricom mobile money in Kenya; tens of millions unbanked users.
• M-Pesa mobile money 2007 · achieved
  Kenya, 2007.
• LTCM collapse 1998 · achieved
  A highly leveraged convergence fund failed and was rescued.
• Credit default swap 1994 · achieved
  JPMorgan, 1994.
• Exchange-traded fund 1993 · achieved
  SPDR (SPY), 1993.
• Quantitative hedge funds 1988 · achieved
  Renaissance Medallion fund, 1988.
• Collateralized debt obligation 1987 · achieved
  The first CDO, 1987 (Drexel).
• Complex derivatives (CDOs) 1987 · achieved
  Structured credit, which helped cause the 2008 crisis.
• Payment for order flow 1984 · achieved
  Pioneered by Bernie Madoff's firm in the 1980s.
• Microfinance (Grameen Bank) 1983 · achieved
  Grameen Bank, Bangladesh, 1983.
• Bloomberg Terminal 1982 · achieved
  A market data terminal.
• Leveraged buyout 1982 · achieved
  LBO boom of the 1980s (Gibson Greetings 1982; RJR Nabisco 1988).
• Interest rate and currency swaps 1981 · achieved
  IBM–World Bank swap, 1981.
• High-yield (junk) bond market 1977 · achieved
  Drexel/Milken popularized high-yield bonds, late 1970s.
• Index fund 1976 · achieved
  Vanguard's First Index Investment Trust, 1976.
• SWIFT network 1973 · achieved
  Interbank messaging, 1973.
• CBOE options exchange 1973 · achieved
  The first listed options exchange, April 1973.
• Black–Scholes–Merton model 1973 · achieved
  Options pricing model, 1973.
• Automated teller machine 1972 · achieved
  Electronic telecommunications device used to perform financial transactions. First modern ATM (IBM 2984) IBM
• NASDAQ electronic exchange 1971 · achieved
  The first electronic stock market.
• Fiat money 1971 · achieved
  Currency backed by decree; universal after Bretton Woods ended.
• End of gold convertibility (fiat era) 1971 · achieved
  Nixon Shock, Aug 15, 1971.
• Mortgage-backed securities 1970 · achieved
  Ginnie Mae pass-through, 1970.
• Credit card 1958 · achieved
  BankAmericard, 1958 (later Visa).
• Modern portfolio theory 1952 · achieved
  Markowitz mean–variance optimization.
• Venture capital 1946 · achieved
  ARD, 1946; Fairchild funding 1957.
• IMF and World Bank 1944 · achieved
  Bretton Woods institutions for balance-of-payments and development lending.
• Bretton Woods system, IMF, and World Bank 1944 · achieved
  Postwar monetary order, 1944.
• FDIC deposit insurance 1933 · achieved
  US federal deposit insurance after the bank runs.
• Federal Reserve System 1913 · achieved
  Federal Reserve Act, 1913.
• Limited liability company law 1855 · achieved
  UK Limited Liability Act, 1855.
• Chicago Board of Trade 1848 · achieved
  Standardized grain futures.
• Modern bankruptcy law 1841 · achieved
  US Bankruptcy Act of 1841; UK 1869.
• Railway Mania 1840 · achieved
  Speculative frenzy in the UK in the 1840s about railways. 1840s – Railway Mania sweeps UK and Ireland. 6,220 miles (10,010 km) of railway line were built
• Classical gold standard 1821 · achieved
  Britain adopted gold in 1821.
• Market economics (Wealth of Nations) 1776 · achieved
  Adam Smith, 1776.
• Futures exchange (Dojima rice) 1730 · achieved
  Dōjima Rice Exchange, 1730; CBOT 1848.
• South Sea Bubble 1720 · achieved
  A speculative mania in a debt-for-equity scheme.
• Bank of England 1694 · achieved
  Founded to fund war debt; a model for central banks.
• Actuarial life table 1693 · achieved
  Halley's mortality table for Breslau.
• Government bonds and national debt 1693 · achieved
  English national debt, 1693; Dutch bonds earlier.
• Glorious Revolution and British financial revolution 1688 · achieved
  Parliament's supremacy after 1688–89 made Crown debts credible; a funded national debt, the Bank of England (1694) and a London securities market followed, cutting state borrowing costs.
• Lloyd's of London 1688 · achieved
  Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, 1688.
• Central bank (Riksbank, Bank of England) 1668 · achieved
  Riksbank 1668, Bank of England 1694.
• Tulip mania 1637 · achieved
  Dutch futures-style speculation in tulip bulbs.
• Amsterdam Exchange Bank (Wisselbank) 1609 · achieved
  Founded in 1609 to give merchants sound, trusted bank money; with the Amsterdam bourse it anchored the Dutch financial revolution and the cheapest credit in Europe.
• Fractional-reserve banking 1609 · achieved
  Bank of Amsterdam (1609) and goldsmith banking.
• Dutch East India Company (VOC) 1602 · achieved
  The first publicly traded company with permanent capital.
• Stock exchange 1602 · achieved
  Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
• Joint-stock company (VOC) 1602 · achieved
  Dutch East India Company, 1602.
• Royal chartered companies 1555 · achieved
  Muscovy Company, 1555.
• Potosí silver 1545 · achieved
  Cerro Rico silver flooded the world economy and fueled Ming and Spanish finance.
• Gresham's law 1517 · achieved
  Monetary principle on circulating currency; "bad money drives out good". 1517: Nicolaus Copernicus develops the quantity theory of money and states the earliest known form of Gresham's law: ("Bad money drowns out good").
• Kongo raffia cloth currency 1500 · achieved
  Standardized raffia cloth and nzimbu shells used as money.
• Double-entry bookkeeping 1494 · achieved
  Practiced in Italy from ~1300; Pacioli codified it in 1494.
• Medici Bank 1397 · achieved
  A branch-network bank with holding-company structure.
• Banking (Medici, bills of exchange) 1397 · achieved
  Medici Bank founded 1397.
• Marine insurance 1350 · achieved
  Insurance contracts in Genoa, 14th century; Lloyd's 1688.
• Bills of exchange 1200 · achieved
  Italian merchant credit instruments, 13th century.
• Medieval usury bans 1139 · achieved
  The Second Lateran Council (1139) condemned usury; church and secular bans on interest pushed lending underground or onto excluded minorities for centuries (Medici bills of exchange were partly a workaround).
• Kilwa Sultanate coinage 1100 · achieved
  Swahili coast city-state minting copper coins for Indian Ocean trade.
• Paper money (jiaozi) 1024 · achieved
  The Song government issued jiaozi notes, 1024.
• Hawala 800 · achieved
  Informal value-transfer system based on trust.
• Aksumite coinage 270 · achieved
  The Kingdom of Aksum minted gold coins from about 270 AD.
• Corporation 350 BCE~ · achieved
  Legal entity incorporated through a legislative or registration process. By the late 4th century BC: Corporations in either the Maurya Empire of India or in Ancient Rome ( Collegium ).
• Coinage 600 BCE~ · achieved
  Lydian electrum coins, ~600 BC.
• Temple lending in Mesopotamia 2,000 BCE~ · achieved
  Temples and palaces lent grain and silver at interest.