This chapter argues that the risks of deflation and inflation and the financial crises at the start of the twenty-first century led to a “crisis,” with declining public confidence in money and the institutions that govern it, primarily the central banks. We describe the alternation of stability ad instability phases in the last half century. The postwar stability phase based on the Bretton Woods system ended in 1971. The end of the Great Inflation in the early 1980s opened the way to another stability phase, lasting until the Great Financial Crisis of 2008–09. A trait of this period was the liberalization and expansion of global capital markets. In the subsequent period – 2008 to today –the boom of digital and crypto finance took place. This period coincides with unprecedented activism of central banks aimed at supporting economic activity, fending off the risks of deflation and, in Europe, preserving the cohesion of the euro under threat from sovereign debts and a fragile banking sector. Lax monetary conditions, inflation, debilitated banks – these factors created an easier ground for competitors to challenge a traditional financial sector in a state of crisis.