Marcel Winatschek

The Banker Knows Where Your Money Has Been

The situation is familiar. It’s 4am, somewhere near the Warschauer Straße, and the supply ran out two hours ago when you made the mistake of sharing. The dealer is, as usual, otherwise occupied. Crisis management, then.

Designer Francesco Morackini’s answer to this precise predicament is the MO-CLEAN/14, also known as "The Banker": a machine that strips cocaine residue from banknotes and collects it neatly in a small container for subsequent use. It looks like something Apple would make if Apple were honest about their clientele.

The premise is less absurd than it sounds. Studies have found traces of cocaine on the majority of euro notes in active circulation—the accumulated chemistry of stressed finance bros, overworked journalists, and people with too much money and too much night ahead of them. Morackini just followed the logic to its natural conclusion. Gather up whatever some careless rapper flung across the club, feed it through the machine, and call it recycling. Efficiency. The circular economy. Very on-brand.