Wow, this is big news...
VISA is down in the UK and Europe
According to this article in The Guardian, People were unable to pay for their shopping after standing in line, so they just dropped their stuff at the til. Some couldn't pay for train tickets, or food for long train rides. And of course the credit cards also didn't work at the gas stations - what do you do if you just filled your tank, have a whole line of cars behind you and now can't pay for it?
I do feel for all the retail staff that were shouted at by frustrated customers today.
@Crypt0 made a great livestream on this here - his announcement was actually how I found out. Thanks, @Crypt0!
What happened? It's not clear yet.
What is clear to me is that this is exactly what a centralized cashless society looks like. The cashless society is coming, there's no doubt about that, but it's soo important that our money will be decentralized when that happens, so that not only one central authority has full control over it (and is so vulnerable to attack).
It's so funny that all customers were advised to use cash. The very thing our governments and banks want to abolish. Was this a test? Was it a hack?
Here in Germany, people love their cash and I bet we will be the last country in the world to get rid of it. So I doubt people had major inconveniences here. Most of us do carry a little bit of emergency cash with us and will never go fully plastic.
Hopefully this event did encourage more people to have another look at crypto and dare to take their first steps into cryptoland.
