I just saw a photo of old coins from like 1 or 2000 years ago and they are all round.
Why is it that they all use coins and not squares or something else completely?
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Another explanation is that metals are rare and difficult to work with, at least for individuals. The scarcity gives metal inherent value (the value of a gold or silver coin is often the value of the metal itself), and stamping coins is an expensive process, making it hard to profit from forgery.
Some rocks and gems have these properties, but they’re not as good as a currency because they’re harder to shape reliably, shatter, and can’t be melted back to their raw materials.
Metal coins are almost unparalleled for their task: Small objects that represent an easily identifiable discrete amount of “value”, are durable, and are difficult to forge.
Modern bank notes also have these properties, but only because technology has progressed to the point where we can make durable paper that contains difficult to reproduce marks like watermarks, holograms, and all of the other oddities that you can find on a bank note.
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