IS MONEY OVERRATED?

I must've heard different variations of quotes regarding the word money, from some of the popular ones like money can't buy you happiness to others like the world revolves around money. One thing we can all agree on is that money in it's different forms have played a huge role in how transactions have been conducted throughout history.

Which is why when I first heard a friend say money is overrated, it got me thinking whether the statement was true or false and whether I could just discard it as another money quote.

The word overrate simply means to give something or someone more than it's fair due.

In this case to overrate money would mean we were basing too much emphasis on money and  giving too much opinion on it's usage.

Throughout history one of the things that has made civilization flourish is trade. Buying and selling has always been necessary because as a nation you can't always provide everything you need. Hence why the need for trade arose.

Trade by barter was once the system used to perform transactions where one party brings a particular product and decides to exchange it for what the other one has. During the trade they can both decide on the quantity of what is being exchanged.

Obviously as humans progressed they saw the need to use something that they could generally accept as a form of payment and throughout history we've had the likes of cowries, gold, silver, bronze and other such metals that have been accepted as a form of payment for goods. 

Today we have cryptocurrencies and I believe money is more of a concept more than a product. If majority of the people accept something as a form of payment then it becomes money. Obviously humans have been careful to only use items that are durable and a counterfeit cannot easily be made.

Paper money is the accepted form today but others forms of digital currencies controlled by various governments are fast becoming a thing due to the success of cryptocurrencies as a means of transactions.

Although I understand the context my friend is trying to say money is overrated because we're all chasing after the paper money today but the same thing would be said for rice, beans or anything as long as it was accepted as money.

To me money is not overrated because it does the job it was intended for perfectly. We might probably have chaos during transactions if there was no proper system to gauge what we're exchanging. Perhaps the struggle to get money is what's overrated.