Cypherpunk Values Are Dying, But They’re 'not Dead Yet' 2025
Not long before he died, Grandad said something that I thought was a little silly, a little old-fashioned.
He declared that he didn’t trust the banks, and he didn’t want them to know what he did with his money. I scoffed at the time, paranoid old fella! But of course, it turns out I owe him an apology.
As we were walking around his house, he motioned toward an off-white wall with an off-comfortable sofa in front of it. This piece of singularly ugly furniture hadn’t left its spot in more than a decade.
The wall had a small square door that, when pushed in, revealed a crawl space. Inside was packaging from the 1970s, partially gnawed board games and unimportant documents, squirreled as if they would one day stave off a harsh winter.
My Grandad guided my flashlight to a brown padded envelope hidden near what I was truly hoping wasn’t exposed asbestos. I retrieved the envelope and handed it over. He took the opportunity to deliver a short speech. He was proud I was doing my Master’s, and he knew it was a financial burden, so he wanted to help. Inside the envelope was a musty wad of cash fastened with a mostly decayed rubber band.
His speech was meaningful, but what came after was wisdom that took more than 10 years to land. I asked why he hid cash in the wall, and he explained that most of his savings were hidden around the house; in books, in wardrobes, under mattresses. In fact, he joked that when he died, I must tear the house apart before it’s sold.
Well, he did die, and we did examine every crack and cavity, and we did indeed find most of his savings. Some of the cash was so old that we worried the bank may not even agree to exchange it for modern legal tender, though inflation had robbed the piles of most of their purchasing power anyway, two scams of fiat that I’ll save for another article.
My Grandad grew up poor in wartime London, and it meant a fierce caution with currency was woven into his DNA; money was scarce. Still, his philosophy was sound, and it has played on my mind for years now.
In 1950, a motorist named Harry Willcock was stopped in London, and the police officer demanded to see his identity card, an unfortunate requirement introduced at the outbreak of World War II.
Harry refused to brandish his papers and was arrested. According to the lord chief justice in charge of the subsequent legal battle, the ID cards were now being used for purposes beyond their original scope. And so, they were scrapped.
Source: CoinTelegraph
