I Like Ripple Because It’s Made in Korea

I have a friend who works at a Saemaul Geumgo (a community credit cooperative). This friend works at a small neighborhood branch, and as is often the case with such places, it isn’t one of those cold, businesslike banks where people rush in only to take care of urgent matters and leave. Rather, it’s more like a village senior center and gathering spot, where idle local residents drop by to have a chat before heading off. According to my friend, if you sit quietly at the teller’s window and watch, the grandfathers and middle-aged women chatter away cheerfully, and every so often they whisper into each other’s ears as if sharing some secret, high-grade intel — and the sight of it is quite something to behold. My friend, too, occasionally gets unavoidably drawn into their midst during work hours, and while bewildered by the feast of trivial rumors and absurd nonsense, plays along well enough to keep the neighborhood residents happy.

One day, with no customers around at all, this friend became a chat partner for a woman who works as a housekeeper. At the very moment when their idle conversation reached its peak — when no more words were needed and a sense of mutual understanding was formed through eye contact alone — this housekeeper suddenly whispered secretively:

I’ve been doing a bit of investing lately, and there’s this thing called Ripple. I really like it because it’s made in Korea~

she said, earnestly recommending that he buy some.

What on earth could be so great about a cryptocurrency being made in Korea? On top of that, isn’t Ripple not even Korean-made to begin with? As these thoughts left his mind reeling and he dithered, unable to find anything to say in reply, the housekeeper, as if her duty for the day was now done, smiled bashfully and went on her way — with a smile signifying that the two of them were now people who shared an unspeakable secret… Watching her go, my friend says he became convinced that the cryptocurrency boom would soon come to an end as well.

Now, three months after this happened (2017.12.28), the prices of cryptocurrencies including Ripple have soared anywhere from threefold at the low end to several hundredfold at the high end. Today, too, my friend and I are mining Korean won — that is, working — ruefully reflecting on how we underestimated the power of human greed.