The Crypto Winter is only just beginning – Moonhub
December 14, 2065. New New York.
The bear market that followed the Great Bubble of 2050 is finally abating, with the first signs of stability returning to the crypto markets.
After the collapse of the Old Order — which had its home here, in what we now call Old New York — the world spiralled into economic depression. Civilisations broke down, governments fell. Anarchy reigned. The flight to safety saw money poured into crypto assets: first Bitcoin, then ETH and top-tier alts, and finally anything with algorithmically-determined supply and a decentralised network. The dollar and other fiat currencies were inflated to meaningless levels by runaway money printing, useless for anything. (Since the advent of plastic notes it wasn’t even good for burning or personal hygiene, worse even than that shiny white paper we used to get in kindergarten.)
Humanity regressed and retrenched. Global corporations vanished overnight, but private enterprise boomed on a local scale as groups banded together for protection — so long as they could pay. And we guarded our stores of value jealously. Day and night, the crypto mines were kept hashing by any means necessary. We burned everything for fuel. Coal. Oil. Forests. Until it was all gone, the atmosphere toxic, sea levels metres higher, our ecosphere shattered, all but the highest land underwater. We adapted, eventually. Some say too late.
One of the fringe benefits of the crypto movement was nuclear fusion. We needed energy to power the world’s proof-of-work networks for Bitcoin and a host of clones, forks and imitators. After we’d burned everything else, we had no choice. It was fusion or freezing to death on the tundra that covers most of our land mass, alone and without our crypto.
Even with fusion, the world outside is dark. All of our available power is needed to maintain our networks and provide heat as a by-product for surviving members of humanity. Additionally, drawing attention to yourself with a light is dangerous. Roving bands of BSV believers regularly make incursions, raiding those who live on the edges of New New York and capturing hapless citizens for their vile cult. The few who have ever escaped speak of dark rituals, being forced to generate energy on treadmills to power mining rigs that run on 2020s technology, and human sacrifice to speed the return of their lord and saviour, known as ‘Cragerite’.
BSV may be the worst, hated and feared, but they’re by far the only ones. Humans are tribal by nature, and without jobs or country borders left, we organised along the only lines we had left. Crypto. Aside from Bitcoin holders, who built New New York with labour purchased from BCash bagholders, the rest decentralised. They scattered, living wherever food and shelter could sustain small pockets of them. But they guard their territory fiercely, identifying travellers from their cryptographic signatures and repelling any from other tribes who try to cross their lands. Some are killed, enslaved, or worst of all, made to forfeit their crypto and sell it for the local currency. Two days ago a Monero settlement was raided by Darkcoiners — the DASH Classic movement — and forced to sign each others’ rings. Not one of them escaped with their crypto intact.
And so we wait. We wait until the market recovers, and we can leave our city and reclaim the world that crypto made and destroyed. We have hope. There is decency left. Most are not evil, they just do not know any better. Many of the young have no memory of Bitcoin, know no peers and have no way to connect to the network. We will welcome people back into the fold if they are prepared to make the sacrifice, proving their allegiance by selling their coins. Better hold a few fractions of a Satoshi than thousands of altcoins.
Article by Moonhub
Published at Sat, 14 Dec 2019 17:54:43 +0000
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