PJ- I just had a 9:30 PM work firestorm and I opened my email to find your absolutely unhinged (in the best way) email. Thanks for always brining levity & the reminder to not take myself so seriously when I am close to my own egg roll panic attack.
The year is 2050, and cryptocurrency is no longer the future, it is the present. Mining is now the biggest industry, consuming most of the earth’s natural resources. Under the stress of the growing crypto black market, the word’s governments collapsed in the Great Tax Crisis of 2040. now code is law, on the blockchain.
Satoshi Baker is an average twenty something man from the doge republic. His parents, like most, were nocoiners. When the hodlers became the new kings with their crypto wealth, the common man was left with comparatively nothing. However, no man rules alone, and thus an army of labor is employed to run the great mines, where cryptocurrenty is mined. Satoshi (whose name is now the most popular baby name) pulls our of his driveway onto the road. The Roadcoin transponder in his dash automatically pays the toll for the road, which like all roads, is now private.
Satoshi decides to take the back route today, since the Dentacoin Expressway is a bargain today due to last week’s 51% attack on the blockchain. After the transaction confirms 10 minutes later, he’s on the highway to Doge69 mine, in nakamoto city.
The car ahead of him slows and comes to a stop. Out come four men, carrying guns. Life is cheap, but wallet keys, and the funds within, are not. Remembering the time he got mugged and lost all his Theta Fuel a few weeks ago, satoshi baker reaches for his 3D-printed shotgun he bought at the market for a few dozen SushiSwap. He loads a 12 gauge and pumps. Satoshi’s aim is true, and he survives the assault by the highwaymen. One of the attacker’s wallets has the title NFT of his car. Satoshi drives off in it, being nicer than his old one.
Over the horizon, a large campus of warehouses comes into view, stretching on for miles. On the other side of the freeway, the large pit mine supplying lignite coal to the nearby power plant complex, providing the mine with cheap electricity, enabling more profitable mining “Exit 34A: Doge69 Employee Parking” Satoshi pays the CueCatCoin toll and the traffic spikes retract, granting access.
Satoshi swipes his wallet, which transmits the door key NFT, and the door opens. Satoshi baker picks up the newspaper in the breakroom. “SpaceX announces first crypto mine on the moon” he chuckles. Bitcoin finally went to the moon. “Historic Bailout Passes as Bitcoin Slips Further.” he puts down the paper and clocks in for work
The loading bay doors open and the pallets of new ASICs are rolled off. The captain of the Doge Republic knows that one doesn’t stay a profitable mine with outdated tech. Some of the highest payed workers work in the vertically integrated in house ASIC Research and Development wing. Satoshi’s parents claim to remember when scientists researched other things, and when computers did all sorts of things and not just mine, but the invisible hand of the free market has deemed that the vast cavernous mines were a better use, he thought.
He gets to work, unboxing the new xX_hashMSTR420_Xx miner rigs and plugs them into the rack. The work is easy but for the sweltering head of the mining rooms, as the HVAC can barely keep up with the heat output of the miners. Satoshi drifted off into his daydreams while he works. He dreams of a day he can make the lucky trade and retire from slaving in the mines and pollution of the ASIC factories to some tropical oceanfront property in Tennessee. At last, the final pallet is installed, and Doge69 remains competitive another day.
Satoshi drives home after work, and makes it home without incident. He pays for today’s broadcast descrambler NFT and turns on the TV. “crypto today with Satoshi Crtiz” begins. Satoshi lazily pulls out his phone to trade along with his favorite crypto streamer. “What’s up hodlers, it’s ya boi satoshi, we got some wild news for y’all sitting at home there, Zkswap’s ICO is HOT! Get it while it lasts” satoshi logs into bitdesk and leverages his houses NFT to buy into the ICO. Satisfied with his portfolio, satoshi baker passes out on the coutch.
Crypto News Network interrupts the tail end of Crypto today “BREAKING: Bitcoin Blockchain ceased functioning months ago, Bitcoin Mining Council denies coverup”
“CNN has learned that the bitcoin blockchain was covertly shut down months ago to save costs. We go live to our chief crypto technical consultant to explain what this means, nick? Yes samantha, the bitcoin block reward is capped at 21 million, almost all of which has been mined. Maintaining the blockchain without transfer fees was costing the Bitcoin Mining Council billions to mine. Seeing as the mining pool had long been centralized, the council quietly agreed to shut down mining and switch to an obsolete ledger technology called Microsoft Excel to process the few transactions bitcoin processes.” “what effect do we expect on crypto markets?” samantha asks. “given how most of the value in crypto markets is in smart loans backed by bitcoin, we expect a credit crunch to follow shortly” “thank you”
“we now go to Satoshi Musk, CEO of the Bitcoin Mining Council. Satoshi, what effect do you expect on crypto markets?” “thank you. Bitcoin is a store of value. Shitcoins aren’t backed by anything, but bitcoin is digital gold. Buy the dip!” “Thank you, Samantha Howard, CNN”
It is the year 2032, but you don't know that because it is Year 23 of the Blockchain Revolutionary Calendar, with the Year of the Sacred Whitepaper as Year 0. The old calendars are illegal in your country now. It's easy to lose track of the old year system as the years go by. You're not getting younger.
Blockchain tech has taken over the computing world. Before, digital goods were mostly free, but these days nearly everything requires a microtransaction. Actually, those transactions are rather large and not very "micro" because there is an increasing number of middlemen who need to maintain their passive income or else they would have to unretire. You envy them so you would never even think of piracy. This new Web 3 technology is amazing.
Satoshi resurfaced 5 years ago, once the dollar was replaced by Bitcoin as the world reserve currency, cementing his place as the richest man who has ever lived. It turns out that he was a Londoner this whole time, just like the Genesis Block suggested. Satoshi already came from a very wealthy, aristocratic family. The family was so prominent that nobody really objected to King Charles III naming Satoshi as his heir after Charles' brief reign. At least, that's how the official story is written and any FUD is illegal.
Even though it's not his given name, Satoshi now rules the United Kingdom as King Satoshi I. He actually rules, too. The parliament dissolved itself because Satoshi simply paid enough money out to anyone who would have objected. The cost of living is always increasing so it was very hard to say no. King Satoshi is in the process of tearing down large parts of London to build a palace complex that will put France's Versailles to shame. It's easy to find the land to take from the former no-coiners and the entirety of London is practically the king's private property now.
You aren't in the United Kingdom, though. You're in Satoshi's Dominion of Canada. That's actually its name now, "Satoshi's Dominion of Canada". He insisted on that. The economy of Canada is booming because it has so many rivers to dam, and it's all used to mine Bitcoin with green energy. In the old days, Bitcoin mining destroyed the environment by using coal and natural gas power, but these days, Bitcoin protects the environment by damming every possible river, no matter how remote, and using it to mine. The percentage of the world's energy consumption that is green is now over 90%, mostly used by Bitcoin and altcoin mining.
You have a family now. You actually did very well in crypto trading and were briefly rich, but you lost it all in the Great Rugpull of Year 19. You should have thoroughly audited that smart contract. You were so close to being able to afford a house, too! Oh well. Eventually, you'll find a dog token that will take off and then you'll buy your dream home, just delayed a few years.
In the meantime, you and your children work in the Bitcoin mines, making sure that the massive warehouses of Bitcoin miners near the remote dams continue to operate properly. It doesn't pay well, but the NFT rent is cheap in the Northwest Territories because it's so remote. Too bad you could never actually buy a land NFT -- the price goes up faster than anything else. The tolls on the roads are very high, too, but your job requires a lot of driving. It's hard to save, but at least the currency is deflationary and you're lucky to have had enough blockchain experience to get this job.
The investment group that bought up most of the land NFTs in Canada is now incredibly wealthy on almost no initial investment because they helped get Canada's land ownership system to move over to the blockchain. Most of their NFTs were actually stolen from them once, but a team of elite mercenaries recovered it. Much of the landlords' wealth trickles up the hierarchy to King Satoshi himself.
You hope one day that you, too, can find a way for the blockchain to make you rich. You're constantly checking Reddit for new projects to invest in, even though browsing Reddit keeps getting more expensive. You're still early because one day everyone will use the blockchain.
Blew my mind every time one of the true believers started waffling on. And just what is a crypto rapper? A new breed of gangsta rapper that entices you with lucrative investment opportunities instead of a regular stick-up robbery?
Really great episode. One question I so wish you had asked of the woman who makes "$15k a month" mining different cryptocurrencies: So are you holding onto those coins you mine? Because it sounds like you prefer to exchange them for old fashioned fiat currency...why is that?
What a fantastic podcast. It's the one that brought me here... So entertaining, well written and educational. The panic attack induced by nicotine patches just added an extra layer of great to it. As an "old person" the whole bitcoin thing is baffling to me, even though I've been following it since pretty much the start, and I have a friend who's a bitcoin millionaire!
But where will it end? Regulation & assimilation or complete collapse? As a natural pessimist I'm thinking it'll sink eventually, meanwhile my son keeps investing in it via a phone app... Bitcoin has proven to be quite the generational gap barometer for our family!
PJ, when I first saw this podcast I thought YOU were involved in setting up Crypto Island, broke my brain for a good few seconds. Love this podcast, I like how you cover the scary and exciting parts of crypto/DAOs etc. in a very balanced way.
Question: Have you heard of PleasrDAO, The Doge NFT, The Pixel Portal, or The Doge Academy? Pretty wild story with many inception like layers. Would love to share the background or intro you to some of the peeps involved, shoot me an e-mail at dogtreatrobotfactoryceo@gmail.com or on twitter @DogeGenerals.
I personally like to listen to my podcasts whilst walking a medium-sized dog—prehensile I can’t sleep at 4 am (because, you know, podcast hosts are like these friends you carry around in your pocket for when you can’t listen to your own thoughts anymore).
It is great to hear your voice and your storytelling again—and thank you for making a monthly subscription that’s the same overall price point as a yearly one.
(Also, I’m always fascinated to see which online services pull my profile picture from where—this one is actually current, as opposed to the one still around that I took in the Denver airport back shortly after Bitcoin launched).
Hi! I have tried several times to add the special subscriber version of crypto island to Apple podcasts but I keep getting an error message when I do it automatically or manually add the link to my library. I’m sure this is a middle age gen x problem but is anyone else having that?
Hey Anna, shoot me an email and I can try to troubleshoot. Subscribers and free folks get the same podcast though. I'm experimenting with bonus audio in the future but it would just come through the newsletter (is the current plan, anyway).
“This is what it would be like to be around when they invented acid, but it’s money instead”
{chef’s kiss}
aahhh, this is my favorite audio storytelling since case of the missing hit. you're firing on all cylinders. I almost felt your stomach ache
I'll listen to it tomorrow while I drive to my job at the mattress store.
<3 u pj
PJ, it’s good to hear your voice, and writing again. Thank you. Looks creepy as I type this out, but you’ve been missed.
Not creepy. Nice to be back to work. Thanks Jo.
So good, PJ! Thank you for coming back!!
PJ- I just had a 9:30 PM work firestorm and I opened my email to find your absolutely unhinged (in the best way) email. Thanks for always brining levity & the reminder to not take myself so seriously when I am close to my own egg roll panic attack.
I cannot wait to listen to this episode!
Thanks Carly. Will likely add “unhinged in the best way” to the critical blurbs on this project.
A bitcoin future
The year is 2050, and cryptocurrency is no longer the future, it is the present. Mining is now the biggest industry, consuming most of the earth’s natural resources. Under the stress of the growing crypto black market, the word’s governments collapsed in the Great Tax Crisis of 2040. now code is law, on the blockchain.
Satoshi Baker is an average twenty something man from the doge republic. His parents, like most, were nocoiners. When the hodlers became the new kings with their crypto wealth, the common man was left with comparatively nothing. However, no man rules alone, and thus an army of labor is employed to run the great mines, where cryptocurrenty is mined. Satoshi (whose name is now the most popular baby name) pulls our of his driveway onto the road. The Roadcoin transponder in his dash automatically pays the toll for the road, which like all roads, is now private.
Satoshi decides to take the back route today, since the Dentacoin Expressway is a bargain today due to last week’s 51% attack on the blockchain. After the transaction confirms 10 minutes later, he’s on the highway to Doge69 mine, in nakamoto city.
The car ahead of him slows and comes to a stop. Out come four men, carrying guns. Life is cheap, but wallet keys, and the funds within, are not. Remembering the time he got mugged and lost all his Theta Fuel a few weeks ago, satoshi baker reaches for his 3D-printed shotgun he bought at the market for a few dozen SushiSwap. He loads a 12 gauge and pumps. Satoshi’s aim is true, and he survives the assault by the highwaymen. One of the attacker’s wallets has the title NFT of his car. Satoshi drives off in it, being nicer than his old one.
Over the horizon, a large campus of warehouses comes into view, stretching on for miles. On the other side of the freeway, the large pit mine supplying lignite coal to the nearby power plant complex, providing the mine with cheap electricity, enabling more profitable mining “Exit 34A: Doge69 Employee Parking” Satoshi pays the CueCatCoin toll and the traffic spikes retract, granting access.
Satoshi swipes his wallet, which transmits the door key NFT, and the door opens. Satoshi baker picks up the newspaper in the breakroom. “SpaceX announces first crypto mine on the moon” he chuckles. Bitcoin finally went to the moon. “Historic Bailout Passes as Bitcoin Slips Further.” he puts down the paper and clocks in for work
The loading bay doors open and the pallets of new ASICs are rolled off. The captain of the Doge Republic knows that one doesn’t stay a profitable mine with outdated tech. Some of the highest payed workers work in the vertically integrated in house ASIC Research and Development wing. Satoshi’s parents claim to remember when scientists researched other things, and when computers did all sorts of things and not just mine, but the invisible hand of the free market has deemed that the vast cavernous mines were a better use, he thought.
He gets to work, unboxing the new xX_hashMSTR420_Xx miner rigs and plugs them into the rack. The work is easy but for the sweltering head of the mining rooms, as the HVAC can barely keep up with the heat output of the miners. Satoshi drifted off into his daydreams while he works. He dreams of a day he can make the lucky trade and retire from slaving in the mines and pollution of the ASIC factories to some tropical oceanfront property in Tennessee. At last, the final pallet is installed, and Doge69 remains competitive another day.
Satoshi drives home after work, and makes it home without incident. He pays for today’s broadcast descrambler NFT and turns on the TV. “crypto today with Satoshi Crtiz” begins. Satoshi lazily pulls out his phone to trade along with his favorite crypto streamer. “What’s up hodlers, it’s ya boi satoshi, we got some wild news for y’all sitting at home there, Zkswap’s ICO is HOT! Get it while it lasts” satoshi logs into bitdesk and leverages his houses NFT to buy into the ICO. Satisfied with his portfolio, satoshi baker passes out on the coutch.
Crypto News Network interrupts the tail end of Crypto today “BREAKING: Bitcoin Blockchain ceased functioning months ago, Bitcoin Mining Council denies coverup”
“CNN has learned that the bitcoin blockchain was covertly shut down months ago to save costs. We go live to our chief crypto technical consultant to explain what this means, nick? Yes samantha, the bitcoin block reward is capped at 21 million, almost all of which has been mined. Maintaining the blockchain without transfer fees was costing the Bitcoin Mining Council billions to mine. Seeing as the mining pool had long been centralized, the council quietly agreed to shut down mining and switch to an obsolete ledger technology called Microsoft Excel to process the few transactions bitcoin processes.” “what effect do we expect on crypto markets?” samantha asks. “given how most of the value in crypto markets is in smart loans backed by bitcoin, we expect a credit crunch to follow shortly” “thank you”
“we now go to Satoshi Musk, CEO of the Bitcoin Mining Council. Satoshi, what effect do you expect on crypto markets?” “thank you. Bitcoin is a store of value. Shitcoins aren’t backed by anything, but bitcoin is digital gold. Buy the dip!” “Thank you, Samantha Howard, CNN”
The electricity goes out
- By /u/DJWalnut
It is the year 2032, but you don't know that because it is Year 23 of the Blockchain Revolutionary Calendar, with the Year of the Sacred Whitepaper as Year 0. The old calendars are illegal in your country now. It's easy to lose track of the old year system as the years go by. You're not getting younger.
Blockchain tech has taken over the computing world. Before, digital goods were mostly free, but these days nearly everything requires a microtransaction. Actually, those transactions are rather large and not very "micro" because there is an increasing number of middlemen who need to maintain their passive income or else they would have to unretire. You envy them so you would never even think of piracy. This new Web 3 technology is amazing.
Satoshi resurfaced 5 years ago, once the dollar was replaced by Bitcoin as the world reserve currency, cementing his place as the richest man who has ever lived. It turns out that he was a Londoner this whole time, just like the Genesis Block suggested. Satoshi already came from a very wealthy, aristocratic family. The family was so prominent that nobody really objected to King Charles III naming Satoshi as his heir after Charles' brief reign. At least, that's how the official story is written and any FUD is illegal.
Even though it's not his given name, Satoshi now rules the United Kingdom as King Satoshi I. He actually rules, too. The parliament dissolved itself because Satoshi simply paid enough money out to anyone who would have objected. The cost of living is always increasing so it was very hard to say no. King Satoshi is in the process of tearing down large parts of London to build a palace complex that will put France's Versailles to shame. It's easy to find the land to take from the former no-coiners and the entirety of London is practically the king's private property now.
You aren't in the United Kingdom, though. You're in Satoshi's Dominion of Canada. That's actually its name now, "Satoshi's Dominion of Canada". He insisted on that. The economy of Canada is booming because it has so many rivers to dam, and it's all used to mine Bitcoin with green energy. In the old days, Bitcoin mining destroyed the environment by using coal and natural gas power, but these days, Bitcoin protects the environment by damming every possible river, no matter how remote, and using it to mine. The percentage of the world's energy consumption that is green is now over 90%, mostly used by Bitcoin and altcoin mining.
You have a family now. You actually did very well in crypto trading and were briefly rich, but you lost it all in the Great Rugpull of Year 19. You should have thoroughly audited that smart contract. You were so close to being able to afford a house, too! Oh well. Eventually, you'll find a dog token that will take off and then you'll buy your dream home, just delayed a few years.
In the meantime, you and your children work in the Bitcoin mines, making sure that the massive warehouses of Bitcoin miners near the remote dams continue to operate properly. It doesn't pay well, but the NFT rent is cheap in the Northwest Territories because it's so remote. Too bad you could never actually buy a land NFT -- the price goes up faster than anything else. The tolls on the roads are very high, too, but your job requires a lot of driving. It's hard to save, but at least the currency is deflationary and you're lucky to have had enough blockchain experience to get this job.
The investment group that bought up most of the land NFTs in Canada is now incredibly wealthy on almost no initial investment because they helped get Canada's land ownership system to move over to the blockchain. Most of their NFTs were actually stolen from them once, but a team of elite mercenaries recovered it. Much of the landlords' wealth trickles up the hierarchy to King Satoshi himself.
You hope one day that you, too, can find a way for the blockchain to make you rich. You're constantly checking Reddit for new projects to invest in, even though browsing Reddit keeps getting more expensive. You're still early because one day everyone will use the blockchain.
Breaking news "NFT Storyteller", "poet" and "Starmanny" shiller can't read a 3 minute story.
Blew my mind every time one of the true believers started waffling on. And just what is a crypto rapper? A new breed of gangsta rapper that entices you with lucrative investment opportunities instead of a regular stick-up robbery?
Really great episode. One question I so wish you had asked of the woman who makes "$15k a month" mining different cryptocurrencies: So are you holding onto those coins you mine? Because it sounds like you prefer to exchange them for old fashioned fiat currency...why is that?
What a racket.
What a fantastic podcast. It's the one that brought me here... So entertaining, well written and educational. The panic attack induced by nicotine patches just added an extra layer of great to it. As an "old person" the whole bitcoin thing is baffling to me, even though I've been following it since pretty much the start, and I have a friend who's a bitcoin millionaire!
But where will it end? Regulation & assimilation or complete collapse? As a natural pessimist I'm thinking it'll sink eventually, meanwhile my son keeps investing in it via a phone app... Bitcoin has proven to be quite the generational gap barometer for our family!
Loved the extra clip.
Exactly what I've been looking for. Reminds me of my fave Reply All episode, "The Founder."
Thanks for coming back to us, PJ!
PJ, when I first saw this podcast I thought YOU were involved in setting up Crypto Island, broke my brain for a good few seconds. Love this podcast, I like how you cover the scary and exciting parts of crypto/DAOs etc. in a very balanced way.
Question: Have you heard of PleasrDAO, The Doge NFT, The Pixel Portal, or The Doge Academy? Pretty wild story with many inception like layers. Would love to share the background or intro you to some of the peeps involved, shoot me an e-mail at dogtreatrobotfactoryceo@gmail.com or on twitter @DogeGenerals.
I personally like to listen to my podcasts whilst walking a medium-sized dog—prehensile I can’t sleep at 4 am (because, you know, podcast hosts are like these friends you carry around in your pocket for when you can’t listen to your own thoughts anymore).
It is great to hear your voice and your storytelling again—and thank you for making a monthly subscription that’s the same overall price point as a yearly one.
(Also, I’m always fascinated to see which online services pull my profile picture from where—this one is actually current, as opposed to the one still around that I took in the Denver airport back shortly after Bitcoin launched).
Hi! I have tried several times to add the special subscriber version of crypto island to Apple podcasts but I keep getting an error message when I do it automatically or manually add the link to my library. I’m sure this is a middle age gen x problem but is anyone else having that?
Hey Anna, shoot me an email and I can try to troubleshoot. Subscribers and free folks get the same podcast though. I'm experimenting with bonus audio in the future but it would just come through the newsletter (is the current plan, anyway).
Ah! That settles it! Thank you for getting back to me!