As digital assets near the precipice of falling into the controlling hands of the very financial institutions they were created to disrupt, one banker turned farmer is leading a small village outside of Moscow in a potato driven cryptocurrency revolution.
When Mikhail Shlyapnikov was diagnosed with cancer a decade ago he decided to shed his bankers three piece suite and gets his hands dirty. He moved to the dying village of Kolionovo 80 miles from the capital with hopes of reviving it through farming.
Five years later he needed money to expand his nursery but when he went to the banks he found they were charging 12% interest on small business loans. So he did what any self-described “agro anarchist” would do, he created his own currency. The farmer describes the situation saying;
“I didn’t want to suffocate and be a slave of the banks, so I had to invent my own money. And I did it. I’m my own bank, government, regulator.”
