The Bitcoin Apocalypse
A tale of buyer advice
Introduction:
Earth.
The year: 2037
All Bitcoin FUD has turned out to be true…
Bitcoin mining electricity usage caused the oceans to start boiling in 2024. The coiners then propagated eating only red meat. Everyone believed them. Within two weeks, 90% of the world population died of stomach cancer and malnutrition. The remaining few are aggressive, with toxic masculinity running rampant.
Because of deflation, China started shrinking and disappeared within a full cycle. Nobody ever spent any money and the world economy instantly collapsed. Bitcoin’s inherent volatility causes violent booms and busts where everyone is rich one day and poor the next day. The only company still in existence: Lamborghini. At a price of 0.1337BTC for the entry level model, only coiners can afford one.
The entire planet south of the great buy wall has been divided into various fiefdoms, ruled from the great Citadels by the Byzantine Generals. All their problems seem to already be solved.
The greatest among them:
Saylor the HODLER who burns anyone that dare oppose him to a crisp with his laser eyes. He was supposed to take them off when Bitcoin reached $100k, but became obsessed, eventually replacing his eyes with real lasers when Bitcoin reached $1m. When his alliance with Elon Musk hard forked, Musk had no choice but to segway to Mars, where it is said he spends his days drinking his own urine and playing with his pack of Shiba Inu’s. Saylor commands the largest remaining army on the planet, made up entirely of institutional investors armed with aK-401's.
The great nation of Ammousstan, ruled over by Saif of low time pref. He finally caught his nemesis, Taleb the Fragile, in a bear trap and chained him to a block where he was forced to eat black swan flesh until he died from a disorder apparently caused by randomness. He died without ever sharing his portfolio. Ammousstan is not permissionless. Should you want to access the Citadel, you would need to appear before Lord Peterson as Saif and many others did. After the KYC process, he will examine your proof of work and airdrop you into one of 4 classes: Lobster, Pleb, Maxi and Frighteningly Smart. So far, only one person has been given the Frighteningly Smart class.
Chapter 1: A New Hope
Peter’s pale, wrinkled hand pulls briskly at the dry branches, then swipes away a pile of dry leaves. “There! … Underneath! … I can see it”. He hastily clears the dirt off the concrete with the palm of his hand, exposing the thick, bold lettering engraved on the concrete slab. “This… this is it Hank-EPO! We finally made it.” The letters inscribed on the concrete slab slowly become visible. “N-E-W”… “ Y-O-R-K”… “F-E-D-E-R-A-L”… Peter cannot help but smile as he reads the last word “R-E-S-E-R-V-E”. “We are finally here.”
Hank-EPO has been Peter’s faithful companion for more than 10 years. Before hyper-bitcoinazation, he was a successful economics professor specialising in inflation, but his hatred for Bitcoin caused him to lose all credibility. For the last 10 years, he has only been able to utter one sentence over and over: “Bitcoin is a volatile asset with an inherent value of zero.” Peter ruffles Hank-E’s hair the way a father would with his young son. “You’re preachin to the choir here Hank-E.” “Anyway, lets go in. I can’t wait to see Janet.”
The two walk towards the large building, careful not to step in any of the piles of cattle shit scattered around everywhere. Hank-EPO has to use all the strength he can muster to open the large, rusted sliding doors just far enough for the two of them to slip into the building. “What’s that sound?” Peter can hear a rattling sound coming from somewhere in the building. As they move slowly down the spiderweb-ridden corridor, the sound becomes louder and louder until finally, they reach a rusted steel door. “In here,” Peter whispers.
They slowly open the door to reveal two figures inside, hunched over a large, flat machine, pulling at levers and hastily pressing buttons. As the light spills into the room from the doorway, Peter can make out an elderly woman and a man. The woman is neatly dressed, wearing a dark blue woman suit with high heels, but the clothes are old and dirty; she probably hasn’t changed them in years. The man is bald with a friendly face, grey beard, and mustache; his pinstripe suit is torn under the armpits and on the knees. His blue necktie hangs the wrong way around his neck and reaches halfway down his back.
“Janet… Ben… is that you?” The woman looks up, the grey hair on her head standing upright like twigs. “Peter! My god, Peter! You made it!”. Ben jumps up, hastily walks over, and friendlily extends his hand to Hank-EPO. “Hank-E, my old pal, how have you been?” Hank-EPO extends his right hand in a quick, short motion, almost robotically. “B..B..Bitcoin is a volatile asset with an inherent value of zero.” “Still?” Ben asks. “Yeah, don’t worry he will get better once we flippen the BTC narrative”. Peter was always optimistic. Even after the night of the long hard-forks, the night the fed and the government lost all influence, he was the one who still had hope.
“Anyway, what are you two up to? Sitting in this dark room with that weird sound? W..Wait a second…Don’t tell me that’s the money printer? God Janet, you promised me you would stop. You know I hate it when you print! Haven’t you created enough dollars in your lifetime?” Janet is visibly shaken, but not one to back down when confronted. “Stop yellen at me! I was fine until Ben came back. His incessant printing is impossible to resist. Besides, we only need to print 3 trillion more dollars and we can afford a 1lb ribeye steak.”
Peter knew he couldn’t stay mad at Janet and Ben, asking them to stop printing money would be like asking Tiger Woods to stop playing golf, or asking Snoop Dogg to stop smoking pot. When a person does something insistently for that long, it becomes part of their DNA.
“Anyway, Peter. You can only be here for one reason. So tell us… did you get it?” Peter slowly tilts his head down and closes his eyes. One can hear the bitterness and determination in his voice as he tries to hold back tears. “We got it, Janet. We now have what we need to contact him.”
Peter, Hank-EPO, Janet and Ben are huddled around a small fire on the ground in what used to be the boardroom of the Fed building. “Ok Peter, show us. We have waited long enough, don’t you think?” “I need to warm my hands Janet, throw some more cash on the fire, would you.” Janet reaches back, grabs a pile of $100 bills with both her arms and throws it on the fire. “There, now show us.”
Peter reaches into his backpack and takes out a package the size and shape of a large Ipad, wrapped in old cloth and tied with a thin rope. As he unwraps the cloth, a small logo becomes visible right in the middle at the top of the object. It is in the shape of a T, but the top part slants down at both sides. Right below the logo Janet can make out a single word, spelled out in ugly lettering: T-E-S-L-A. “Goodie!!” Ben exclaims. Everyone in the room now visibly excited. “B..B..B..Bitcoin is a volatile asset with an inherent value of ZERO!” Hank-EPO yells out. “Calm down, calm down Hank-E; I know this is a big moment for you too, but let's not get over-excited.”
“Ben, plug this into the emergency backup power supply.” Ben scuttles over to the closest wall socket, plugs an electric cable into the wall and brings the other end over to where the group is standing. As he is about to hand over the cable to Peter, he pulls back, hesitating. He has a bewildered look in his eyes. “B…But this electricity… it could be used to print more dollars. We don’t have that much backup power left.” “Now Ben… you will be able to print as much as you want when he returns, now hand over the damn cable to Peter and sit down!” Peter snatches the cable from Ben’s hand and plugs it into the Tesla Infotainment System, which is now resting on an old chair in the middle of the room.
After it powers up, Peter has to answer some security questions in order to unlock the device. A smooth lady voice fills the room from the device speakers. “What gives you the most pleasure in life?” “Energy FUD” Peter answers immediately. The screen turns green, then the voice starts again. “Why can Bitcoin not be the world reserve currency?” Hank-EPO hastily shuffles over to the device, brings his head down to where his mouth is right next to the screen, and yells. “Bitcoin is a volatile asset with an inherent value of ZERO!” The device screen turns white, and the lady voice again fills the air: “Welcome, Mr. Schiff”.
Peter grabs a chair and seats himself opposite the device. “Contact Lord Elon”. Thirty seconds later a bald, red face appears on the screen. “What?” The man says impatiently. “Lord Elon, it's Peter.” “What is it, Peter? Make it quick I’m in my space suit harvesting soybeans.”
Ben pokes his head into the conversation. “Elon! How could you? How could you just leave us like this and fuck off to Mars?” Lord Elon, now visibly irritated, sneers into the screen, “Oh please, Ben, you know as well as anyone I had to leave. Everywhere I went on earth, people were trying to fuck me. It’s impossible to live like that.”
Peter pushes Ben out of the way, “L..Lord Elon… please, that is why we are calling. It’s about the Keiser.” “What about him?” “Your excellency, on… on the 13th anniversary of his Fuck Elon tour, he…he attempted to swallow a 3-pound orange pill filled with cocaine. He is dead sire.” Lord Elon seems inquisitive: “The Kaiser is dead?”. “He is sire.” “Begin preparations for my arrival. Lord Elon shall return to earth”. The screen cuts out to black.
“Gosh, that went well” Ben never forgave Lord Elon for leaving. “So what do we need to do now, Peter?”. “Don’t worry. Hank-EPO has saved all the lamest memes on the internet for the last 10 years. That should please Lord Elon upon his arrival.” “With him back on earth, we have a fighting chance.”
