The Accidental Invention of Banking

Banks weren't invented, they were accidentally discovered. Over two thousand years ago in ancient

Mesopotamia, temples became the first banks by pure chance. Priests stored grain

for farmers, gave them clay receipts, and people started trading those receipts instead of actual

grain. The priests realized something wild: they could lend out grain that wasn't

theirs because not everyone came back at once. They charged interest on loans using other

people's deposits. This created money from nothing. The system worked so well that it

spread to ancient Greece and Rome. Modern banking still uses this exact trick.

Every time your bank makes a loan, they're doing what those Mesopotamian priests figured