The pandemic was thought to have originated from a traveler who managed to stuff 23 baby turtles, 6 baby platypuses, 4 kilos of refined Guano (bat shit), 3 bags of Nepalese tangerines and 1 box of Cheerios in his suitcase as he set off on a flight to Singapore from Shanghai. The exotic cocktail that stewed in the duct taped suitcase would eventually give rise to a novel form of virus that migrated from platypus to human, a first of its kind on record. While most of the world had shut down public gatherings and chosen to self quarantine, the Crypto-roo event team and the crypto community had, against every government mandate, boldly chosen to continue with the event and gather in the hot climate of Las Vegas.

I ordered a mojito and got to work. Almost immediately and without warning a man with heavy stubble and shaved eyebrows joined me. Though i’ve never met this man, he lingered with a blinkless stare and convulsing smile — in the corners of his mouth was visible drool. Taking a slice of lime from a leftover drink at the bar he began chewing on it, rind and all — he pointed at my phone and asked “Having a good day?”

Ignoring him, I slowly shifted my body to signal my disinterest in engaging. Unfazed, he launched into a diatribe recanting how he was the original crypto-pimp, who had managed to get VC investment from bored casino owners to combine prostitution with blockchain.

At a glance it seemed brilliant — the world’s oldest profession now on the latest fintech platform — crypto. He had learned about crypto at a local meetup in Reno held by a Komodo community leader named Randy who also happened to be a freelance developer for an Australian crypto exchange, though his LinkedIn read “Buffalo Wild Wings — HotWings Engineer”.

After wiring $250,000 of his pimp savings to an offshore account in Malta, Randy, his connection, was found dead of a botulism-paralysis asphyxiation in a booth at an all-you-can-eat buffet off the strip. Turned out Randy had been scamming entrepreneurs by promising to tokenize projects using the Komodo platform while in reality syphoning the money to feed his Botox habit. After so many years of getting Botox, Randy had decided it would be more cost effective to buy 100% pure Botox from a smuggler, DIY the proper dilution and self-inject by watching youtube videos on the topic — a simple miscalculation resulted in him paralyzing his diaphragm and asphyxiating to death halfway through his lunch buffet run.

“The paramedics found him collapsed on a plate of king crab legs and jumbo shrimp — his skin was perfectly silky smooth and wrinkle free.”

The paramedics found him collapsed on a plate of king crab legs and jumbo shrimp — his skin was perfectly silky smooth and wrinkle free. Without recourse, the pimp had been left broke and the whole project fell apart.

Who were these nobodies? What were they doing here? I wasn’t entirely sure why he insisted on telling me any of this, but I suspected he wanted charity. At the end of the day it’s all about the benjamins. The situation had suddenly soured and I felt my impromptu networking encounter had devolved into a test of the human psyche in both patience and tolerance — I was done tip-toeing around these freaks.

The mojito, now warm but still inviting, had taken a turn for the worse. My head was pounding — oscillating with every heartbeat. Still sipping the mojito I lowered my head, pressing fingers against my temple in a slow rubbing motion only to hear a sharp high pitched voice “You in busin..”, “What?” opening an eye to see her black leather flats with subtle bows pointing directly at me. Raising my head there stood a middle-aged Chinese woman with glasses, she suddenly spoke again, but too quickly, “What did you say?” I stated while slowly raising my head to make eye contact. “mmmhrmm I’m an accountant something something .. LinkedIn” she ripped my unlocked phone from my hands and *BEEP* then suddenly handed it back with LinkedIn open and my account QR code nakedly exposed. She turned and stated “I don’t work with dirty money.” and then promptly walked away. It still isn’t clear what happened in that moment but her profile request was ignored.

I wondered how or why these people kept approaching me — did they just hang around the bar all day pitching their decrepit blockchain projects to anyone with a pulse or was there something more? Did they somehow know I had $132M in newly acquired crypto wealth? Had they cross-referenced cookies across the websites I was visiting? Or worse? Was the wireless network compromised? Why was my phone now connected to wi-fi? I was strictly on 5G this entire time with wire guard enabled to protect the connection.

Fearing that other pitches from the straggling local crowd were sure to follow, it was time to decide if I should stick it out or head for the sunlight. From a distance the entrance suddenly dimmed, people began screaming, and my heart started to race. Men in full hazmat gear rushed from the entrance, “shit”. They were grabbing people, in the distance a man began sobbing, the mojito was bailed on as the glass splintered across the floor. Swiftly turning I leaned my weight to begin running but in regaining balance pushed too hard on my left foot leaving me to a painful limp. Fear turned to panic — it sounded like someone was being killed in the background. Over the last week there had been rumors of the government taking extreme actions to control the spread of the pandemic, but this seemed straight out of a sci-fi movie flick.

“His elbow crushed into the back of my spine leaving me twitching, curled up in a ball.”

“Halt” was the last I heard before a 250lb male using a stool to build momentum dropped down on top of me. Gripping my shoulder and twisting my body until the impact was imminent, and then another. His elbow crushed into the back of my spine leaving me twitching, curled up in a ball. The lumbering giant used a broken stool leg to turn me over before straddling my stomach, raising my hands while I whimpered — he said nothing. He took out tactical zip handcuffs and pulled them until my hands went numb. I said nothing, trapped like an animal, before he yelled “CLEAR”.

Looking up I could only make out the body suit, N754-K anti-viral anti-bacterial anti-anthrax military grade mask, and the lifeless mirror reflection of his visor, a dystopian nightmare come to life. He started to roll me up in bubble wrap and sprayed my eyes with hand sanitizer, I screamed like a child, he grunted breathing through the respirator “DO NOT RESIST”. From the corner of my eye I could see an envoy of hazmat suits slyly making a beeline for the bathrooms, carting out rolls of toilet paper as though it were precious cargo; I wondered who or what required that much toilet paper.

As I lay there in a semi-catatonic state, face slathered with hand sanitizer and vision blurred from the sting of the denatured alcohol, I thought of the black card token I had shoved in my shoe, still in my luggage which had been confiscated by the front desk due to my delinquency in paying the bill. That token could have me on a charter flight tonight no questions asked. Instead, there I was, laying on a prostitute-filthy floor, $132M in my front left pocket, two clicks away from being able to buy a small island off the coast of Morocco and escaping this dystopian nightmare, yet totally powerless to act. I needed to find a way out of this forced quarantine.

To my left was a man in his 40s, scars on his arms and neck and with a serious look on his face. He had been sitting quietly at the far side of the bar, whiskey neat in his left hand while his right hand twitched nervously. Barely visible on his shirt was a faded Tezos logo. Now he stood firmly, with a sawed-off shotgun drawn and pointed at the head of one of the quarantine squad rogue virus officers who tried quarantining him, threatening to blow his brains out.

Using this distraction, I managed to slither and roll closer to the back entrance and find a mojito glass shard that I could use to cut apart the bubble wrap that restricted my movement. While the room I was in was surrounded by hanging plastic sheets meant to contain the virus within, I could still see the flashing lights and hear the lively 8-bit music tracks from the nearby slot machines as casino goers went about their day as though nothing was happening. Slowly crawling through the dozens of cocooned quarantined people I managed to release myself from the plastic enclosure, popping out of the other side drenched in a sludge of sanitizer agent.

I’m sure the sight of me was odd at that moment — I was entirely too drenched and handcuffed to seem normal, though the casino floor staff seemed oblivious enough to still ask me if I wanted to play blackjack as I passed their tables. At that moment I did not have an appetite for gambling.

Buzzzz, buzzz, buzzz. My phone was getting lit up in another relentless rapid fire. The monitors lining the casino switched between the Crypta-roo conference stage 1 broadcast, live updates from tradingview and horse racing. The top ten crypto list was about to shake up, and then it happened. Latency delay between the Coinbase notifications -10%.. -50%.. then it rebounded. I howled but the floor staff went about their business as if this were a normal day in their book. I was desperate and needed to sell fast,-80%. With some dexterity I twisted my handcuffed hands deep into my left pocket and grabbed my phone, unlocking it with a glance.. -96%. What happened?

Opening Twitter it became apparent this was an unprecedented level of fuckery. The headline read “Justin Moon Holds Token Hostage” the run up was likely whales colluding building enough volume to liquidate their positions. Apparently Justin Moon had gained control of a majority stake through the slow accumulation of network share while Zombie witness nodes were deployed to fake consensus and attempt to fork the network. It was all over once trust was broken.

My portfolio imploded, essentially worthless, now -98.5%. Like sand slipping through my fingers $132M burned before my eyes. Why didn’t I sell?

My spirit broken, I walked toward the sunlight — I felt a rush of warm desert air fill my lungs and dry the mint-scented sanitizer sludge that covered most of my body. In the skies above echoed the thunderous sounds of numerous Sikorsky Super Stallion military helicopters heading straight for the Las Vegas convention center — straight for Crypta-roo. I imagined the chaos that would take place as this massive military convoy forcefully quarantined the flamboyant and exuberant crypto crowd of attendees. The sudden dismay on their faces as they were caged and packaged like exotic animals — the dopamine withdrawal bends they would endure as they laid there, soaked in sanitizer and twitter-less.

In all of my years attending conferences I had never encountered such a combination of extremes. Crypta-roo was legendary for all the wrong reasons — yet despite all of this there was a nagging certainty that should it happen again next year, I would find my way to it, like an automaton craving chaos.

I was exhausted, burnt out and broke — for now, it seemed, Crypta-roo 2020 was over for me...

[THE END]

Collaboratively written by Voynich, Bitc0m and JAnon.