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A daily email from the public record

The times money stopped working, rebuilt hour by hour.

Cyprus 2013, Greek capital controls, Indian demonetisation, Lebanon, payment outages. What failed, in what order, and what kept working.

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The record

Cyprus 2013

  1. Overnight

    The announcement is made.

  2. Saturday, mid-morning

    The branches are shut for the weekend anyway.

  3. Saturday, mid-morning

    Electronic transfers between banks have already been stopped.

  4. Saturday, mid-morning

    The machines still work.

  5. For days after

    The cash machines keep dispensing, on limits.

  6. During the closure

    Card acceptance at merchants weakens. The card network itself keeps operating. Wholesalers are reported demanding cash on delivery.

The pieces were public. Out of order.

In sequence: six pieces, oldest first.

Tap a button to put the pieces back in order.

01The Pattern Library

When money stops working, the same dependencies keep appearing.

Entries collect evidence over time. Read for a year and you see which sequences hold up across many events, and which appeared once and never again.

Sample entries

  1. #1

    ATM service continued during the bank closure while daily limits and cash depletion reduced what an account holder could obtain.

    Observed: Cyprus 2013.

  2. #17

    ATM service can remain available while withdrawal access tightens through daily limits, per-institution caps and cash depletion.

    Observed: Cyprus 2013, Greece 2015.

Changed today: #17 gained a second case, Greece 2015.

02Inside every issue

Six parts. About 700 words.

One documented event, from the first hour to the library.

Part 01

The Hour

The opening moment, on the clock, and what was happening.

01The Hour

Saturday, mid-morning.

Sample: Cyprus, 2013

The announcement had been made overnight and the branches were shut for the weekend anyway. The machines still worked.

Part 02

The Sequence

The reconstruction: hour four, day two, week three. Every step carries a date, and where accounts differ, the issue says so.

02The Sequence

  1. Overnight

    The announcement is made.

  2. Saturday, mid-morning

    The machines still work.

  3. For days after

    The cash machines keep dispensing, on limits.

Part 03

The Hidden Dependency

The dependency that turned out to matter, and was less visible than the headline failure.

03The Hidden Dependency

The cash machines kept dispensing, on limits, for days after the announcement, while electronic transfers between banks had already been stopped.

The failure was not that the money vanished. It was that some rails carried on and others did not.

Part 04

What Still Worked

The channels that kept working longer than the rest.

04What Still Worked

Cash machines

Kept dispensing, on limits, for days after the announcement.

Card network

Continued to operate while card acceptance at merchants weakened.

Part 05

From the Record

One short block from the record, a different kind each time.

05From the Record

Five kindsOne per issue

  • The Document. One notice, circular, form or rule that mattered.
  • This Week, Then. An anniversary of a documented event, in three lines.
  • The Plumbing. One settlement or clearing mechanism, explained.
  • Contested. A point where the record disagrees with itself.
  • The Slow One. One sourced figure, and nothing added.

Part 06

The Pattern Library

The running list, with every case behind each entry.

06The Pattern Library

#17

ATM service can remain available while withdrawal access tightens through daily limits, per-institution caps and cash depletion.

Observed: Cyprus 2013, Greece 2015.

Changed today: #17 gained a second case, Greece 2015.

03Latest reconstructions

Most recent, from the record.

See every reconstruction

The premise

Only what was published at the time.

Documented events, rebuilt from the record.

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