The word “bankrupt” comes from Italian banca rotta, which means: “broken bench.”

In renaissance Florence, money lenders worked on wooden tables in the marketplace.

When a money lender ran out of money, that bench would be broken. Hence, “banca rotta.”

You see a broken bench in the streets of Florence, you knew the lender has no money.

Today, bankrupty often involves abstract legal entities filing a collection of forms.

Five centuries:

Literal to abstract.

Atoms to bits.

Physical books to ebooks.

Bank notes to cryptocurrencies.

In class learning to at home e-learning.

Stuck in traffic to work to working from home.