Cryptofomo

She pressed her heart into my hand. It was all that was left of value.

The bellhops were buying but no-one seemed to be selling.  Everyone recognised the bubble forming but Cryptofomo had not only taken hold but was spreading at what should have been an alarming rate. Of course there were naysayers, but every time the market made their predicted correction it would just as quickly bounce back with interest.  People may not have understood exactly what it was they were buying, but they certainly understood that they couldn’t get enough of it. Demand for cryptocurrency continued to outstrip supply. Cash would soon be confetti.

Gold, love; one was heavy in my hand, the other in my heart.

Cryptocurrency certainly proved more resilient than many of its critics predicted. The original tenet that supply was somehow limited was as clearly fabricated as the currency itself. When Bitcoin burst forth upon the world it was claimed (somewhat inaccurately) that only twenty-one million would ever exist. Fiat currencies could inflate ad infinitum – surely the finite nature of Bitcoin made it a better store of value? “Until someone invents iCoin or BitDollar” was the response of the shorters. And they were right. First came NameCoin, then Litecoin. Literally hundreds followed. Coins issued as payment for working out the transactions of other coins. There was a problem though; despite the increase in supply the coins kept rising in value! Coins were created as a parody. They increased in value. Coins were created as a parody of the parody. They increased in value. The market bears were taking a beating despite the accuracy of their predictions. In the leveraged world of short selling, losses mount quickly when prices rise and if there is one thing considered unforgivable in the world of financial markets it’s being wrong when everyone else is right. Any analyst offering even a misgiving on the subject of cryptocurrency was soon shunted. The buy-a-thon was on in earnest. Formerly conservative financial institutions were diving into the cryptocurrency pool. Governments from developing nations saw it as a way of reducing their dependence on the Greenback. Trillions of Dollars, Yen, Euros and Rupees were tipped into the market. Managed funds, Pension Funds, scrimped savings. The bubble inflated so far that it was no longer recognisable.

The locket had belonged to her Grandmother. It was small but twenty-four carat.

Governments needless to say were nervous at a trend away from the currencies they controlled to ones over which they held no sway. Their toothlessness however was soon exposed. They had been incapable of stopping the flow of their own currencies into tax havens, how were they going to stop a decentralised currency that like most of their citizenry they didn’t really understand? Then it came to election time and the realities of plural democracy set in. Electioneering costs money and the donors aren’t very interested in financing politicians that are going to impede their ability to make money. Any remaining malcontents were quickly steamrolled.

I could have sold it to buy medicine for her, if any still existed.

Whether it’s tulip bulbs, dotcom companies that don’t generate revenue or just plain old Hubba Bubba, bubbles tend to meet the same fate. Cryptocurrency was no different. The rise of quantum computers saw what was supposed to be a hundred years worth of Bitcoins mined in a few days. This almost immediate centralisation of wealth killed off the mining industry. On what should have been the crowning day for cryptocurrency the spruikers had fallen silent, unprepared for the sudden demise of their industry. Investors, never having fully understood the nature of that which they’d been investing in, smelled a rat and began to sell. As the price dipped, the automatic stop-loss orders from major financial institutions kicked in. The dip became a plunge. Then came the first run. People deciding that they would like to get their hands on some good old fashioned cash were finding that by the time their transactions were completed the prices had plummeted. The spiral deepened. People whom hadn’t bought cryptocurrency were soon in trouble as the banks that had held their savings folded. Countries that had adopted the cryptocurrencies began to default. As people watched their savings go up in smoke they took to the streets, overwhelming police forces. Armies were called upon but the private companies that supplied them with arms and victuals were collapsing around them. Chaos reigned as Antifa groups clashed with militias. Some had managed to retain their wealth but in a poor world the rich man is in a precarious place. It was amazing how quickly centuries of development can degenerate into a scramble for baubles.

I put her golden heart in my pocket, holding her as hers made its last beat. I closed her eyes to the world that was left.