Opinion | Cryptocurrency is an uprising against today’s flawed financial system
As millennials come of age, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin revealed a chasm of misunderstanding between generational values
We live in troubled times. A sense of crippling anger and abandonment grows. People feel powerless to shape the forces that command their lives. In this setting, young people- the generation of millennials – are reshaping the financial world through technology and especially cryptocurrencies.
In a recent Reuters interview, Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) urged “extreme caution” about buying cryptocurrencies. “I do hope when the fever has gone away, when the crash happened, it will not undermine the much deeper, and more meaningful technology associated with digital currencies and blockchain.”
Menon added that he would not rule out the possibility of the MAS issuing a cryptocurrency directly to the public, but that he was not sure it was a good idea.
Such ambivalence and misunderstanding about the underlying socio-economic and historical undercurrents blinds the baby boomer aged leadership to the roots of the next financial crisis. The remaining members of baby boomers (those born between 1946 to 1964) are still running central banks and financial institutions. Millennials (born between 1980 and 1994) view boomers as the group who plunged markets into the 1987 crash, the 2000 dotcom bubble burst and 2008 global financial crisis.
The collusion of state and market in dispossessing people through speculation and financial excess haunts millennials. It feeds their scepticism of traditional financial services and the market system. Their desire for change in how financial products are delivered and support for the cryptocurrency revolution is difficult for others to comprehend.
