Nick Szabo is a fascinating writer.
How contracts became 'money'.
Cmmodities (might) be turning into money.
How contracts became 'money'.
In the middle of the Darby century came the important decision of Miller v. Race. Surprisingly, no copy of this case is to be found online save in the syllabus of Professor Gregory Maggs. So with his permission I've appended his edited version of the case (with some additional very minor edits of my own) below.
Cmmodities (might) be turning into money.
We may be seeing only the first stages of a switch from floating currencies, which may be proving to be unworkable, to commodity-backed currencies. Floating currencies were and are a great historical experiment, and there is no guarantee that such experiments will work out in the long run. By serving monetary functions such as stores of value and hedges against currency-denominated debt, commodity index ETFs and ETNs are starting to serve as monetary substitutes.