Trust
The Trust Timeline
A chronological record of moments that changed how markets perceive money and value. Educational, not editorial — each entry states what happened and why it mattered to trust specifically.
December 23, 1913
The Federal Reserve Act creates the US central bank
The US Congress created the Federal Reserve System as the country's central bank, after a series of banking panics exposed the lack of a lender of last resort.
Why it mattered to trust
This is the institutional foundation the dollar's trust model still rests on today — a currency trusted because of the central bank and legal system behind it, not because of what it's printed on.
July 22, 1944
The Bretton Woods Agreement
Allied nations agreed to peg their currencies to the US dollar, which was itself convertible to gold at a fixed rate — making the dollar the anchor of the postwar monetary system.
Why it mattered to trust
For the first time, most of the world's currencies derived their trust indirectly from gold, filtered through trust in the US dollar specifically. It formalised the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency.
August 15, 1971
Nixon ends dollar-gold convertibility
President Nixon suspended the dollar's convertibility into gold, ending the Bretton Woods system. The dollar — and every currency pegged to it — became a fully fiat currency.
Why it mattered to trust
This is the single clearest historical example of a trust model changing: the dollar's value stopped resting on a fixed claim to gold and became entirely a matter of trust in US institutions and monetary policy. Gold, freed from its fixed price, began trading as a market-priced asset in its own right.
October 17, 1973
The 1973 oil crisis
OPEC members imposed an oil embargo, roughly quadrupling oil prices within months and contributing to a decade of high inflation across major economies.
Why it mattered to trust
It coincided with the era's loss of confidence in fiat currencies' ability to hold their value, and gold — freed two years earlier from its fixed dollar price — rallied sharply as a response.
January 1, 1999
The euro launches
The euro was introduced as an electronic currency across 11 EU member states (physical notes and coins followed in 2002), replacing national currencies like the deutsche mark and the franc.
Why it mattered to trust
It created a new, deliberately supranational institutional trust model — a currency backed by a shared central bank and treaty framework rather than a single national government, still a live experiment in how far institutional trust can extend beyond a single state.
September 15, 2008
Lehman Brothers collapses
The investment bank filed for the largest bankruptcy in US history, triggering the acute phase of the global financial crisis and a near-freeze in global credit markets.
Why it mattered to trust
It was a direct shock to institutional trust in the banking system itself — the mechanism money relies on to move safely through the economy. Central banks responded with the first wave of the large-scale balance-sheet expansion (quantitative easing) that has recurred in every major crisis since.
January 3, 2009
The Bitcoin genesis block is mined
The first block of the Bitcoin blockchain was mined, launching a currency with no issuer, no central bank, and a fixed, publicly auditable supply schedule.
Why it mattered to trust
It introduced, for the first time at scale, a fundamentally new trust model — trust in a protocol and a decentralised network instead of an institution — directly in response to the same financial crisis that had just shaken trust in the banking system.
March 15, 2020
Central banks launch emergency pandemic response
Facing a sudden global economic shutdown, major central banks cut interest rates to near zero and launched the largest coordinated balance-sheet expansion in history.
Why it mattered to trust
The scale of global liquidity expansion renewed a long-running debate about currency debasement, and contributed to a rally across scarce assets — gold and, for many market participants for the first time, Bitcoin — as alternatives to holding cash.
November 11, 2022
FTX collapses
One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges filed for bankruptcy amid revelations of misused customer funds, wiping out billions in customer assets.
Why it mattered to trust
It was a trust event specific to centralised crypto infrastructure, not to Bitcoin's protocol itself — but it sharply accelerated regulatory scrutiny and a shift toward self-custody and regulated venues across the industry.
January 10, 2024
US spot Bitcoin ETFs are approved
The US SEC approved the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, allowing mainstream brokerage accounts to hold Bitcoin exposure without directly custodying the asset.
Why it mattered to trust
It marked a significant step in Bitcoin's trust model gaining institutional legitimacy — regulated, familiar wrappers extending access to participants who would not otherwise hold the asset directly.