Herr Blanke’s Middle Finger and A Lesson in Responsibility

Herr Blanke entered and, while traversing the classroom, announced, “I have some unfortunate news, I will no longer teach you Math and Physics”. He reached the blackboard and turned to study our bewildered faces.

Silence. At the age of 11, you begin not to like your teachers, but this one was different. He was our class teacher, and we loved him – everybody loved him.

Herr Blanke was old-school and strict. But he also had a sneaky sense of humor and a mischievous smile to go with it. He respected his students and forgave our youthful foolishness. 

Here he was, scanning our reaction with a dead-serious expression. This wasn’t a joke.     

Crypto….. what?

At the end of 2017, it looked like Bitcoin was just one step away from replacing regular money. All of a sudden this digital currency was what everyone needed. If not this one, then one of its crypto-siblings.

Seriously, what was that? Where did that come from and is it gone now? More importantly, why is there such a big controversy about it? When digging into the subject I quickly realized, that my view of it simply being digital currency was extremely naive. Interesting about cryptocurrency is not that it is digital-only-money, but its decentralized character.

As such it is an attempt to undermine the entire global monetary system. It is a direct attack on the authority of central banks and governments. Sort of rebel money, anarchistic currency, if you will.