How Finance Rewired the Future: A timeline

Timeline

Finance is entangled with the temporality of our world. When it slows or accelerates, the world shifts with it. When finance falls into crisis, its ruptures turn into occasions for gain. And each market movement becomes a lever that reconfigures the future.

This timeline follows those pivotal moments. From agricultural rhythms to speculative trading, from central banking to algorithmic governance, and from national economies to planetary finance. We find ourselves at a threshold. Finance could extend time into ecological repair and shared resilience. Or it could compress it further into fracture and volatility.

How can we shape this direction?


curated by Giulia Dal Maso

  • 1848

    • Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) founded

      -> First organized futures market. Capitalism begins shifting from trading goods to trading financial contracts.

  • 1890s–1910s

    • Populist Revolt

      -> Farmers’ and workers’ movements in the U.S. and Europe denounce “money power” and demand democratic control over credit

  • 1913

    • Creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve

      -> In response to repeated panics (notably 1907), states begin to centralise monetary authority.

  • 1944

    • Bretton Woods Agreement

      -> U.S. dollar becomes the global reserve currency; creation of IMF and World Bank.

  • 1971

    • End of the Gold Standard + NASDAQ launches

      -> Money becomes detached from gold (floating exchange rates).
      -> First electronic stock exchange — beginning of digital finance.

  • 1973–1974

    • Oil Crisis & Petrodollar System

      -> Oil priced globally in U.S. dollars.
      -> Dollar dominance shifts from gold-backing to oil-backing.

  • 1973 onward

    • Emergence of Quantitative Finance (Black-Scholes model)

      -> Mathematics and computing enter financial markets; markets become algorithmic.

  • 1978

    • China’s Market Reforms (Deng Xiaoping)

      -> China opens to capitalism and foreign investment; becomes global manufacturing hub.

  • 1979–1982

    • Volcker Shock

      -> U.S. interest rates raised to almost 20% to crush inflation; central banks gain power over economic policy.

  • 1980s–1990s

    • Rise of Quant Hedge Funds

      -> Firms such as D. E. Shaw, Renaissance Technologies, and LTCM apply statistical arbitrage and automated trading.
      -> The market becomes a data-driven environment, with volatility and uncertainty reinterpreted as calculable risk.

  • 1990s–2000s

    • Structured / “Exotic” Financial Products (CDO, CDS, MBS)

      -> Financial engineering spreads risk throughout the system; foundations of the 2008 crash.

  • 1999

    • Repeal of Glass–Steagall Act (U.S.)

      -> Removes separation between commercial and investment banking; accelerates financial speculation.

  • 2001

    • China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO)

      -> Hyper-globalization; Western production shifts to China; global labor reshaped.

  • 2008

    • Global Financial Crisis

      -> Collapse of deregulated finance; governments bail out private banks.
      -> Quantitative easing policy funnels billions from other allocations into the financial markets, creates unprecedented growth in the 2010s.

  • 2009

    • Bitcoin is created (Satoshi Nakamoto)

      -> First decentralized digital currency; challenges state-issued money and banking.

  • 2010s

    • Dominance of Asset Management Capitalism

      -> Asset managers (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street) become systemic institutions, managing trillions on behalf of passive investors and pension funds.

  • 2017

    • Xi Jinping defends globalization (World Economic Forum)

      -> China positions itself as the defender of global free trade as the U.S. becomes protectionist.

  • 2020

    • Stimulus Checks

      -> Triggers a wave of retail investor liquidity swamping the markets and establishing a veritable financial force in the years to come.

  • 2018–2025

    • Trump Tariffs / U.S.–China Trade War begins

      -> First major reversal of globalization since WWII.

+ –

  • +

    • DIGITAL/FINANCIAL

      Finance as Public Infrastructure

      -> Digital public money (CBDCs) gives everyone a free account at the central bank.
      -> Banks act like public utilities and invest in housing, care, and climate.

    • ECOLOGICAL

      Ecologised / Regenerative Finance

      -> Pollution creates ecological debt.
      -> Regeneration earns ecological credit.
      -> Money rewards restoration.

    • POLITICAL/GEOPOLITICAL

      Democratic Globalization

      -> Cross-border payments become cooperative and climate-focused.
      -> Trade is guided by shared prosperity.

    • DEMOGRAPHIC

      Longevity as a Common Good

      -> Pension funds invest in care and sustainability.
      -> Aging becomes an asset: intergenerational wealth and care systems grow.

  • –

    • DIGITAL/FINANCIAL

      Financial Authoritarianism

      -> Digital financial infrastructure becomes a tool of political obedience.
      -> Crypto populism replaces democratic representation and elections turn into speculative meme-coin campaigns.

    • ECOLOGICAL

      Greenwashed Capitalism

      -> Financial markets continue to profit from carbon credits and “climate derivatives” and fossil fuels dominate disguised as “green investment.”

    • GEOPOLITICAL

      Fragmented Protectionism

      -> Trade wars escalate (U.S. vs China tariff blocs).
      -> Global cooperation collapses; inflation and scarcity rise.

    • DEMOGRAPHIC

      Welfare Collapse / Labor Shortage

      -> Aging population with too few workers to support pensions and care systems.
      -> Intergenerational conflict and inequality increase.

MEDIA

  • Reshaping Money

    Gillian Tett | Video

    Gillian Tett, the renowned Financial Times journalist and Provost of King’s College Cambridge, offers a piercing perspective on the current geoeconomic crisis and the role of global finance within it. She examines three pivotal dynamics of our moment – deregulation, de-dollarisation, and digitalisation – and shows how these forces are reconfiguring the meaning and function of money today. Watch now

  • The Possibility of Democratic Finance

    Natasha van der Zwan | Interview

    Natasha van der Zwan, a leading public governance expert at the University of Groningen, examines the deep ways in which finance shapes everyday life and sets out a vision of finance organised for public good. Watch now

  • The Future of Collective Finance

    Melinda Cooper | Interview

    Melinda Cooper, one of today’s most influential political theorists based at the Australian National University, explores what forms of collective finance could emerge if we move beyond the limits of Keynesianism and orthodox ideas of the welfare state. Watch now