Cryptocurrency as generational narrative

It's not an exaggeration to say that South Korea has gone gaga over cryptocurrency. For something that can't really buy anything in real life, cryptocurrency has certainly taken on a virtual life of its own as the new gold rush where a lucky strike can result in a windfall.

What's happening in Korea with crypto investing is no longer investing in the traditional financial sense; it's more of a social networking phenomenon. In fact, in a Business Insider article, Sara Silverstein quotes the FundStrat cofounder Tom Lee, who says: "If you build a very simple model valuing bitcoin as the square function number of users times the average transaction value, 94% of the bitcoin movement over the past four years is explained by that equation. This model is based on Metcalfe's law, which says the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users on the network."

In other words, the value of bitcoin or other crypto currency is proportional to the number of people who invest in bitcoin. In that sense, it's not really money. It's a club that has become so popular as the place where the cool kids hang out that everyone now wants to join ― consequently, the membership price has gone up.

This speculative spectacle is not entirely unrelated to the "Hell Joseon" or the "Dirt Spoon" phenomenon that served as expressive outlets for the sense of despair and frustration that the 20- and 30-somethings felt over their lack of opportunities in today's Korea ― especially when compared to the hope-filled opportunities that their parents' generation enjoyed in the ‘1970s and ‘80s when everyone seemed to be getting richer. All you needed was some land or an apartment. With a bit of hard work, which wasn't difficult to find in a rapidly growing economy, you were guaranteed to do well as your house, land, or apartment inevitably went up in value. Those golden days of endlessly rising real estate are long gone, but many in Korea still swear by the tried and true formula.

Tried and true to the older generation is just pie in the sky to the younger, however. They can't afford the ridiculous real estate prices, unless their parents are already wealthy. In fact, the labor system, corporate culture, social value, academic achievement, and everything else that seems to matter in Korean society is built on the success narrative ― The Miracle on Han River ― of the past with such a high entry barrier young people can't climb over.

Then here comes crypto currency. With the incredible run in the past two years, tech savvy young people have been writing a popular narrative of sudden wealth and prosperity all their own. Get a little money together, invest in cryptocurrency, and watch it go through the roof. This is their own Miracle on the Han.

Cryptocurrency may even be a continuation of the empowerment narrative that the younger generation has started writing with the Candlelight Revolution last winter that drove out the symbolic vestige of the Miracle on the Han generation. In the aftermath of that successful political muscle-flexing, they have found something entirely their own that seems to empower them economically. It's truly been a heady year for the 20- and 30-somethings.

No wonder they reacted with such vehemence at the government's clumsy attempt to control this windfall. After the justice minister, Park Sang-ki, turned the crypto world upside down last week when he said regulators were preparing legislation to halt cryptocurrency trading, the popular rage was palpable. In three days, a petition on the website of the presidential Blue House had drawn more than 170,000 signatures opposing the move. More telling, the petition was titled, "Has the government ever given the people a cause for a happy dream?"

The message is clear and angry. Korea's leadership, consisting of the older generation who benefited richly from Korea's modernization, should just stay away from us. We know that you can't help, but you can certainly hurt with your ignorance and thinking that's wedded to the past. You had yours; now we want what's ours. Stay out of our way. It's our time. The cryptocurrency phenomenon has almost become a declaration of generational independence.

Ah, but the irony. The younger generation is trying to do exactly what the older generation did: get rich quickly by riding on some miracle not of their own making. Perhaps I am being too harsh here, but, despite all their talk about failure of the past to serve their needs, the younger generation at least seems to have inherited the get-rich quick attitude of their elders that was forged during the Miracle on the Han River. Underlying the cryptocurrency narrative is a sense of entitlement to some get-rich schemes (that actually work) or guaranteed or formulaic path to a better life.

I guess that you never really escape your parents; you tend to inherit what you despise the most about them.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006.

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