Unpopular popular opinion: the money we use nowadays is made up of IOUs (I owe you). The money is created by central banks. Central banks don’t get money from anything; instead, they create money. The money then goes to investors, government and corporatios, and that’s why the rich become richer, and I, as a poor person, become poorer.
Exchange has always been done with IOUs. Even when bartering was the meta they still exchanged promissory notes for larger scale transactions where they didn’t have the goods on hand.