Inspiration strikes in the most unusual of places. Even in Reddit. And yes, even in Ethtrader where I happened across this cross-posted tweet: “OH — if Crypto is pop culture; Chamapesa (which marries Kenyan tradition with modern tech to create a new type identity) is Bob Marley and the Wailers.”

Now normally I consider anything in Ethtrader with the highest level of suspicion, but having just watched Ready Player One, a virtual reality world dominated by pop culture references from the 1980’s where players ‘earn coin’…. new synaptic pathways were created in my mind linking crypto, pop culture and VR. But then maybe these pathways weren’t exactly that new.

Having keenly followed Bitcoin for many years I’ve often found myself comparing the crypto-scene with the music scene of my younger years. Whether that’s punk (even though my Mum wouldn’t let me have a pink mohawk when I was 9) to the rave/club culture of the late 80’s early 90’s in which I, ahem… most definitely partook. Crypto has similar sensibilities and memes, think… lambo, think… drugs, think for yourself and fuck-the-system.

Then there’s the tribalism, Mods vs Rockers, Teddy Boys vs Skinheads, Emos vs Daylight. Is this really so different from Bitcoin vs Ethereum or even big blockers vs small? Well maybe apart from the comeback tour… nobody wants to see a Crypto King Pin reduced to a speaking tour because they lost their private keys — SO BACK DAT SHIT UP

Crypto is the new Rock n Roll. There, I said it. If you don’t believe me go and watch Ready Player One and keep your eyes peeled, I even noticed a newspaper article on-screen promoting ‘OasisCoin’. This is happening!

I’d like to go back and explore how we got here. You see, once the ‘satoshi-had-dropped’ and I slipped down the crypto rabbit hole, I kept being drawn to the central mystery of Bitcoin — Who is Satoshi? This tapped into my inner fan, and this time I didn’t need a pink mohawk.

Satoshi has created one of the most important inventions of the past 100 years. This is not merely a global superstar known for singing, dancing or acting, all of which help us escape briefly from the banality of life but doesn’t satisfy deeper needs to be truly free. What Satoshi had done, was something new! A new idea in the world. As I trotted out the classic newbie moves — trying to convince everyone in the world that the future of money was here, the disbelief that met was astonishing — nobody seemed to have any vision. By pure chance I happened to catch a rockumentary on the BBC in which a young Paul McCartney (circa 1963) was asked how long he thought The Beatles and his pop career could last — he said he couldn’t see himself playing ‘From Me To You’ when he was an old man of 40. He even laughed like that could NEVER happen.

Well, as it turned out Sir Paul was in the charts with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder in the year he turned 40, and he would be on stage singing his Beatle hits to the Queen when he was 70.

So even those at the centre of a new phenomenon have no idea how big it can grow, nor how quickly it can get absorbed into the mainstream. Nobody dancing in fields to rave music in the late 80’s would have dreamt that the BBC would use a dance track as an intro to their flagship news channel. To be honest, we barely knew how to get out of the field.

The List

Bitcoin was the first global superstar of Crypto, therefore Bitcoin is Elvis. But just like Elvis, Bitcoin originated by standing on the shoulders of giants.