Description according to consumers
Following the hacking of the blockchain, the entire economic system based on virtual currencies collapses. Consumers who had deposited all their savings in a cryptocurrency account lose everything and find themselves with no recourse. Mr A bore the cost of this: he had staked everything on Facebook's virtual currency, Libra.
After vainly attempting, through every possible channel of communication, to reach someone who could help him, Mr A heads back to his traditional bank, which he had not visited for years. Arriving at the door of his branch, he finds himself facing dozens of people in the same situation as him, waiting on the pavement for someone to see them. After hours of waiting without success, so long is the queue, Mr A goes home hoping that a technological miracle might still be possible. It is then that he receives a notification and, the second afterwards, the President of the Republic appears in his living room in the form of a hologram to speak about the terrible cyberattack and governments' inability to recover the losses. This cyberattack, which ruined hundreds of millions of people worldwide, will make the front pages of every newspaper for nearly a year. The absence of effective regulation (bills are under discussion in various countries but did not pass in time) makes the victims aware of the limits of technology and of fintechs. Devastated and powerless, Mr A realises that he really has lost everything. Disillusioned by this system that provides for neither a supervisory body nor an intermediary, consumers are forced to head back to their traditional bank.
Mr A, a former manager in a large industrial group, must now alternate between food banks and the food support set up by a few charities. He is nevertheless aware of being one of the lucky ones, because other people ruined by this cyberattack now rummage through bins to survive. The poverty rate has climbed in many industrialised countries and a severe economic crisis is affecting every country. Techno-sceptical consumers, who always insisted on having visibility over where their savings were held, are spared. They had, for example, invested their money in local SMEs. Mr A's neighbour, having given his children connected toys that were hacked and used to steal highly confidential information from him, had learned his lesson. He had therefore not invested in cryptocurrencies - a wise decision!
Consequently, consumers are getting used again to going to physical shops and local traders. They also resort to bartering and exchange, and get back into the habit of withdrawing cash and paying by bank card.