Memento Mori with manuscript- Image Source: Pixabay

How a 15th Century Manuscript Helps Resolve the Cryptocurrency Argument

History hints at the death of modern banking.

“Where there is no order, there is confusion,” -Luca Pacioli

When one peers into the past there are examples of the ingenious ones, with ink-stained hands, eyes dimmed from reading too many books who shake things up for others. These bright stars enlighten the masses; and vex the status quo with ideas, inventions, and philosophies.

We have repeated this story many times; whenever a new technology arrives, we replace the antiquated ideas of the past. There are innovators today tipping the applecart with a promise of decentralized Blockchain ledgers that will change how we use money.

The First Accounting Book

A few years after Christopher Columbus made his journey to the New World; an obscure Italian monk named Luca Pacioli wrote one of the most influential books of all time. The establishment of modern accounting begins in 1494 when Pacioli codified accounting principles practiced in his home country of Italy.¹

The methods described by Pacioli became written in a book entitled Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions).²

Humanist Ideals

The humanist movement was just beginning in Early Renaissance when Pacioli wrote Summa. The growth of the merchant class in the Italian Renaissance and other parts of Europe helped trade expand and promoted humanism; a philosophical ideology that encouraged the pursuance of pleasure in life rather than conducting life in servitude.³