Remember the year 2011: Rain, cold temperatures. Tents and signs on the streets – “We are the 99%” – camp orders, assemblies. In New York, London, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv people were angry. They felt abandoned with no hope for the future. And they knew who to blame: the banks. The burst of the housing bubble, asset-backed securities, the credit default swaps, bank bailouts, European states unable to pay their debts, and so on. You know the story.

The first snowstorms swept the pavements free of the camps, corporate glass façades were swept free of the color bombs, and the large banks’ accounts were swept free of their dirty assets. So people went back to chasing numbers, back to paying with credit cards, back to the old system they hated so much. You might say the Occupy Movement was just a short phenomenon and nothing came out of it. But that is not true. There is Bitcoin – and people like Josh Scigala, who are helping to turn this decentralized digital currency into a real alternative to the current financial system.



Josh, you worked as a 3D designer in Australia. You left your job and started a global Bitcoin-gold exchange with the objective of making the cryptocurrency more reliable. Why did you decide to work with Bitcoin?



I have always been interested in economic topics. After 9/11, I started looking further into global money policy and its geopolitical implications. I began using Bitcoin in late 2010, as I was fascinated by the fact that it is decentralized. Nobody has control over it. The 2008 financial crisis showed again how screwed up our current system is; we create money out of debt.





We have a separation of church and state, we should also have a separation of money and state.



Money created out of debt. What exactly do you mean by that?



Our global monetary system looks complex, but it is actually quite simple: Banks dole out money – with interest! If you have 50 euros in your pocket, then somebody owes 50 euros to the bank – with interest! Now imagine that there are only two people on an island. Both have to pay back 50 euros plus 10 euros interest. Where do the 10 euros come from? You have to sell the second person something and get the extra 10. So you pay back 60 euros, but the other person now needs to pay back 20 euros that don’t exist. If you zoom out, that second person is what Greece is up to right now. It is holding everyone’s debt.

How can we understand Bitcoin as possible salvation from this system?



We have a separation of church and state, we should also have a separation of money and state. We need a system where the central bank cannot just print unlimited money with true value attached to it whenever it is needed for political purposes. Bitcoin is a way out. It allows you to exit your local currency for a while if you are not happy with the money policy of your country. And this gives those in charge an incentive to not to screw up your economy.