Investing
A brief history of compound interest
From ancient ledgers to your phone: the oldest idea in finance.
Sam Okafor
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7 min read
Compound interest is older than coins. Clay tablets from Mesopotamia record loans where interest was added to the principal and charged again.
From merchants to mathematicians
Medieval merchants used compound tables to price long voyages. In the 1600s, mathematicians found that compounding more often approaches a natural limit, the number we now call e.
Why it still matters
The math has not changed in four thousand years. What has changed is access. Daily compounding used to be reserved for banks. Now it can run on everyone’s savings.
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APY vs. APR, explained in two minutes
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