“I felt a sense of shame when I lost money on my Bitcoin investments, not once but twice because of my greed to make a fortune in one go,” she said. Being young in South Korea can be defeating and stifling. Young Koreans are called the “sampo generation,” a portmanteau referring to the three things they have given up on: courtship, marriage and family. Adding to their sense of disillusionment are a string of political scandals, including one that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, that exposed the deeply entrenched ties between South Korea’s powerful conglomerates and politicians. When cryptocurrency came along, it set off discussions in chat rooms, weekly hangouts and even intellectual salons created just for digital coins: Could this new system uproot South Korea’s rigid social order?

Source: New York Times February 10, 2019 19:52 UTC