REKT - Chapter 25
Thanksgiving
People tell me that I’ve missed Austin, that I came here too late to see what it was really about. Back in the day you could wander around town, walk into any old place, order a bucket of beers and hear some real quality music. I’m not sure what I’m missing because I’ve been doing that the last couple of nights. People tell me it was different back then, before everyone moved in and knew about the scene. I’m not sure what was so different, because as a kid I remember my parents watching Austin City Limits on PBS and that was twenty-five years ago. Still, I’m told it’s different. That I missed something.
Isn’t that everything with the past? I’ll probably be saying the same thing about crypto when I’m old, fat and want to have something on someone who’s clearly living a more interesting life than me. I’ll probably tell them stories about a magical six-week period before my partner and my lover betrayed me, before we got caught up in creepy parties with pedos, blackmail, and embezzlement. I’ll be talking about the good ole days of crypto without realizing it was really a matter of days while it was good, that we had a nice couple of weeks before everything sucked, before we ruined it by being greedy scumbags.
Anyway, it’s Austin and it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and the bubble has decided it is not going to let us go. The show was extended another day due to popular demand. I’ve never seen this happen before, but so much is happening, so many people wanted to attend, so much money is being made that we all agreed to stay in the warm embrace of the bubble yet another day. We don’t need to give thanks at home with our families. We need to give thanks to the bubble. Thank it for taking us on a magic carpet ride. Thankfully, the bubble cannot work through a major holiday like Thanksgiving. Even in business-friendly Texas where no one has any standing, any rights as a worker, and everyone is either getting over or getting crushed, it’s still too hard to staff a tradeshow for twenty thousand people on no notice. This dinner tonight is the end of DeCentra 2017 whether the bubble likes it or not.
Dinner is not on the official schedule. This is a special thanks for the inner circle who chose to stay on another day and ended up getting stuck in town. I have no interest in being here. I wanted to be in Phoenix with my family, but Andy and Niko were staying so I had to stay. It’s not that had to stay, it’s that I don’t trust them to not fuck me over while I’m gone. They are going to do whatever they want whether I’m here or not, but it’s the messaging that I’m worried about. I need to keep up appearances, pretend to our customer base that we haven’t borrowed their money and are using it to speculate. I don’t trust the two of them to bullshit people properly. They are getting flagrant in their disregard. It seems only I care about the story of Icarus, about winding this down as quietly as possible.
Back to dinner. We are having a cobbled together Thanksgiving feast in the ballroom of the Wyndham attached to the conference center. Three hundred of us are here. We are the VIPs, speakers, and exhibitors attached to the show with nowhere to go. Deacon Joe is onstage ready to give a speech. I’ve heard he wanted to do something special for the industry, to give back as a form of gratitude for the year Blockstar and the entire space has had.
Joe is wearing a sport coat, white T-shirt and jeans. This is a new outfit. The fourth outfit in his wardrobe. Crocodile Dundee is gone. He’s shaved, showered, shampooed, cleaned up for this moment on the stage. The bubble has decided that Deacon Joe needs to come in from the cold and get a little more corporate, more approachable. He pauses and looks to the back of the room, checking to see if they are ready. I turn and look. There’s a TV crew here. New outfit and a camera crew for a last-minute speech the night before a major holiday. Something is off here. The bubble is not that powerful yet, is it? Joe gets the go ahead and steps to the podium.
“Hello Friends. Thanks for all being here. I want to start with an exercise. I want everyone here to ask themselves a simple question. Do I provide value?”
Joe pauses, there’s a rattling of silverware in the room. A murmuring from the audience as rolls, butter, stuffing is passed. There are few servers here. The conference organizers were not able to rustle up a full cater waiter staff on Thanksgiving Eve. Joe does not speak. I look across the table at Andy, at Nikola, at Bull God. How they stuff their faces and eat with the lust of a pillaging horde. Joe slams his hand down hard on the podium. It echoes across the room, booming out of poorly setup speakers. Reverb and feedback drone through the big ballroom. People look up from their plates at Joe and the noise silences.
“Put your forks down and ask yourself the question. Do I provide value? Am I here to give or am I here to take?”
Joe looks across the assembled masses, scanning the room, stopping at our table. He looks at Andy, bores into him, and then continues speaking.
“It used to be such an obvious question, that no one needed to ask. If we were here, if we were assembled as a community as a congregation, then it was because we were here to give. There was nothing to take, was there?”
The old sages in the audience, core devs and evangelists, none over thirty, nod and reply yes. “If you provide value, stand up.”
I look across the room. People are rising. Not many at first. The veterans, the true believers, friends of Deacon Joe are on their feet. Andy stands with them. I do not. Nikola does not either. She looks at me. It’s the first time I can see something approaching remorse on her face. It does not last. She’s standing now, Bull God is standing too. The entire room is. No one wants to be sitting. No one wants to be identified as a taker. Still, I cannot. I don’t get up. Andy is looking at me. Kelvin Cho at the next table is urging me to rise. My face is turning red. What statement am I making? Why won’t I stand? I have given, but I have also taken. I am no longer here to provide value. I am a thief. I am not comfortable in my new skin yet, but if I do not stand, people will ask why. I’ll have to tell the truth or a pathetic lie about my stomach. After far too long, I get to my feet as well.
Joe is not impressed with the audience.
“Takers. Too many takers in this room. I know who is here to give, who provides value. I know who is here to take, who looks at this room as a buffet to plunder, who thinks of our community as a big con to rip off.”
I feel Andy’s elbow in my rib. That rib from earlier, the one I broke in a blackout months ago when this was all still a party. When I was a good guy having a good time in a thing that didn’t amount to much. When I was young and dumb. He’s not pulling it away. The pressure creates a dull throb, then a sharp pain in my shoulder.
“Don’t get cute.” Andy barks at me.
I step on his foot and mutter, “Go fuck yourself.”
Joe interrupts us, “Sit down, the entire lot of you. Now ask yourselves again, who is here to take and who is here to give?”
“I’m trying to eat,” a man yells from the back of the room. There’s a quick burst of snickering, but that’s shouted down by the people who matter here. Joe is one of them. He matters. These are his people. The noobs belong to no one. That’s what Joe’s establishing with this demonstration. He’s showing people that he is authentic, respected.
“I am here to give.” It’s a woman with pink bleached hair, the side of her head is shaved. I know her from somewhere. She’s a core dev for Blockstar. The three tables around her all stand. They are all in matching black t-shirts that read Blockstar Gives in hot pink script. So, this stunt was staged. Interesting.
“Me too.” It’s Kelvin from MercuryOne. He’s joined by other old faces. My friends, my colleagues, my competitors stand until there’s dozens of them. Andy rises.
“I’m here to give Joe,” Andy says.
Joe smirks, “Sit down Andy. I don’t know what Icarus is here for anymore. You sit down and we’ll see what you have to give later on.”
Whoa. Joe just put Andy on blast in front of the entire industry. Andy is still standing. He’s got that big smile on his face. He’s ready to put on a show. Is this all staged? Kayfabe? I can’t tell.
“Everyone in this room knows what I’ve given Joe.”
“But do they know what you’ve taken?” Deacon replies, leaving the podium walking to the edge of the small stage in the center of the ballroom.
Oh God, is Deacon Joe about to reveal our misappropriation of funds?
“You mean what’s been taken from me? Go ahead, tell the entire room where I’ve been. Tell them what I’ve been going through. Where you’ve been with me. I have nothing to hide,” Andy parries back.
“Those experiences don’t give you the right to take.”
Hmm. Joe is digging in here, hitting closer to home than I’d expect if this was staged. Andy volleys back, “Joe, are you alright? Are you in the right frame of mind to be up there? Maybe this isn’t the night for you. Maybe you’ve taken something that’s affecting your judgment.”
There’s a knowing laugh in the room. Andy continues on, “I’m going to sit down Joe. You should too.”
Andy has engineered his escape. That was not staged. I can tell because I’ve seen them run games on plenty of people before. There was a real strain in their voices, not how they talk when acting. What is going on here? The clatter of silverware has diminished. Food is getting cold on the tables. We’ve got ourselves a bit of drama.
“All of you sit down. I’m fine. I feel better than I have in ages because I have seen the light. My eyes have been opened. We have been corrupted by money. Our community whose mission it was to replace money, has been corrupted by money. We’ve betrayed our future in the name of the present. In the name of getting something for nothing.
“The only way to restore this. The only way to get our community back to providing value is to destroy value. We need to flush the takers out of our temple. We need to run off snakes who whisper such vile things. The snakes who tout and scheme, who lie and destroy trust.
“Blockstar is not about money. If you’ve bought our coins because you thought you were getting rich, then you’ve made a mistake. You’ve not read anything we are about. You have not heard our message. We created Blockstar to give. We are trying to give the future an opportunity to be free. To be free from banks. To be free from governments. To be free from gatekeepers and monopolists. To be free from tax. To be free to transact. We are not here to be rich. We are here to be free.”
Joe thumps his hand down on the podium preaching now. A cheer goes up from the Blockstar table. They start chanting. “Blockstar Gives. Blockstar Gives.” There’s a series of looks around our table. None of us has any idea what is going on. Niko and Bull God look very uncomfortable.
“How much do you have in BSTR?” Andy asks.
“Too much.” Nikola replies.
“Get out now.”
She reaches into her purse, pulls out a second phone then a third phone. She hands one to Bull God, one to Andy. They are opening crypto exchange apps, Gemini, 4coin, Elemental. They start exiting positions. I can tell by the urgency on Andy’s face that too much is way the fuck too much.
“How much I ask?”
No one answers me. It’s like I don’t exist when it comes to this scheme of theirs. A ghost, the walking dead. Fuck these guys. I wish I could just walk away, but I’m caught in the middle. Frozen out, but the face of the lie. I start to sweat. We fuck everything up. All we do is get taken. We are losing our clients’ money. When this speech is over, we’ll be back at square one. Worse, we’ll be in the red this time. We are losing borrowed money, money we asked no one to borrow. That’s called stolen money. Sometimes you go to real jail for embezzlement. I can’t go to real jail. If I could, I would have stopped this already. I would have given us up.
“Now, I’m not sure what our token is worth at this moment.” Joe continues, he’s got his shirtsleeves rolled up. He’s pacing the stage, “When I checked this morning one BSTR was worth two-hundred eighty dollars. Given how crazy all you takers have been acting lately, it’s probably worth more.” “Two ninety-three and falling fast. Bots are waking up. They are dumping.” Bull God says, not looking up from his phone.
“How much do we have?” I ask again.
“Shut the fuck up Ryan.” Niko answers. How I hate her right now, hate all three of them. Joe’s mic cuts over our table talk, “We don’t want to be worth two-hundred eighty dollars. We want to be worthy humans. Worthy creatures of God. Blockstar Gives. Blockstar does not take. We provide value. We don’t store value.
“If you are holding BSTR to be rich, you better find the door quick. You better dump our coins and find a false God to park your magical money in. We’ve been meeting this week, the foundation, our core devs, the key stakeholders. We have been searching our souls. We have been asking ourselves who we are and how we want to be remembered. We want to be remembered as creatures of God. As kind stewards who left this world better than when we came into it. How many of you can say that about yourselves? How many of you are making the world a better place? Who here is growing the pie? Who here is a deliverer of abundance? “I don’t see a lot of you, but I also don’t see a lot of lost souls here either. I see a group that has been blinded. I see a group that just needs a reminder about what we were all taught as kids. The golden rule does not mean who has the gold makes the rules. It means do unto others.
“Lots of wayward sheep here tonight. Lots of you forgot what our guiding principles are. Lots of you are looking to the moon dreaming of being a sheep up on the moon. That’s not where we belong. We don’t live on the moon. We aren’t sheep. We live here on Earth. We live here with our sisters, our brothers, and our children. We need to give back to them. I’m here to remind you of that. Blockstar is here to remind you of that.
“Our reminder, our solution from this week of meetings and asking ourselves just who we were, is to destroy the value of the Blockstar token so that you all can see the value of the Blockstar network.” Joe pauses, wipes his brow, looks out over the crowd. Deacon Joe indeed. He can work a room. As he steps back to the podium for a sip of water, a series of alerts ricochets across the room. Phones beep, phones vibrate. A hundred people reaching into pockets, into purses, pulling out their devices and looking down in disbelief.
“What’s going on friends? Are my words having an impact? Is Blockstar losing its fake money value? I can feel it gaining in utility. I can feel the power of the network growing. I can feel it doing good again. I can feel goodness coming back to me. What’s BSTR worth now friends?”
“Two twenty, you fucking asshole. You’re taking Bitcoin with you too. Everything is falling.” Another voice from the back of the room, a taker, a faker calling out Joe for questioning the bubble like this. “I can’t speak for Satoshi. No one can. All I can do is talk about my project. All I can do is speak for the Blockstar community. Here is our message. Blockstar is prepared to release two trillion coins into circulation. Free for anyone to take. Free for anyone to use. BSTR will be like air. It will flow like water. It will sate the thirst of the needy. There will be so much Blockstar on the market that it will render all existing BSTR coins worthless. Our foundation just issued the proposal. We’ll open it for approval next week. As soon as 50.1% of tokens vote yes, we’ll begin issuing new coins. We’ll be worthless by the New Year, and we’ll start again as servants, as givers.”
Joe stops speaking. Smiling big and happy on stage. He’s glowing in the light. A man completely at peace with himself. The room is shocked into silence. I can’t help but be taken by his clarity, his conviction. I can’t help but envy how he must feel right now.
Niko and Bull God get up from the table. She whispers in Andy’s ear. He turns and looks at her. Oh shit. We are in trouble.
“How much Niko?” I ask.
She ignores me, focusing on Andy, “We can’t get out fast enough. There’s no one on the buy side.” Andy is on his feet. The three of them are leaving the room. I watch them walk off into the shadows at the back of the hall. Our table is piled with half eaten plates. Gobs of turkey slobbered in gravy. Cranberry sauce smeared on the throwaway tablecloth. Red wine, white wine, biscuits and peas. A part of me wants to race after them. A part of me wants to stay here with Joe. There are eyes on me. I can feel people staring at me. I raise my head and look up at Kelvin.
“We need to talk,” he mouths at me.
I can’t leave here. If I leave with them, then rumors are going to fly about what we are up to. People will ask questions. It’s bad enough that Joe called Andy out like that from the stage, but now with them rushing out of the room as crypto bleeds red all over everyone will be suspicious. I have to stay here, whether I like it or not. Whether I know what I believe in or don’t believe in. Before I can decide what I owe to anyone, I need to stay here and speak for Icarus. If I don’t come up with a story there could be a run on our reserves. I don’t know how much we’ve lost. Are we in the red? How deep a mess is all this and why didn’t I see this coming? I’ve been talking to Joe. I’ve been with him. I should have been paying closer attention to Joe this entire time. He’s the only person in crypto willing and capable of doing something like this and he’s been signaling it since Maui.
Kelvin is standing over me. He has his hand on my shoulder. “Come on Ryan, let’s go for a walk.” I get up and follow him out of the conference room. My feet on autopilot, my head running through my memory searching for the spreadsheet that holds MercuryOne’s current balance. Kelvin’s exchange still has thirty-seven million dollars’ worth of ICA to redeem. This conversation won’t be too bad. I know we can cover all of that if he chooses to withdraw. We’d never do something as stupid as put all our bets onto BSTR. The other coins are climbing back as money pours out of Blockstar. We’ll be okay to cover Kelvin.
Kelvin leads me to the pool balcony. We are downtown, in the middle of new development. Skyscrapers and condos glow in the night. New construction has changed Austin. If they told me this was what was different, what they didn’t like about the place, I’d understand. Instead, they focus on how the thing they love has shifted over the years, even if it’s still more or less the same. This shit, this new blight on their landscape is ignored. Verboten. Funny what we chose to fixate on.
“What’s going on?” Kelvin asks me.
“Besides Joe crashing his own coin?”
“What’s up with Andy? Who was that at the table with him?”
“That’s Nikola and Bull God.”
“Bull who?”
“You’ve seen Andy’s videos lately?”
“Yeah.”
“Bull God’s the brains behind all that stuff.”
Get out ahead of him, that’s the move here.
“Kelvin, here’s the thing.” Now turn and look him in the eye. That’s it, continue on just like this, “Andy is trading on the sly. He’s not waiting for Icarus to wind down. They’ve got eight, maybe ten million dollars in coins. Some of it is our personal savings. Some of it was the money Andy went out and raised. That’s why no one has seen him. He’s been hitting people up for money to run a hedge fund on the sly. That thing between Andy and Joe was because of that. Andy ran out of the room because he had a bunch in BSTR.”
That seems like a serviceable lie. It sounded quick. It didn’t sound rehearsed. You did a good job of that Ryan. Let’s see what Kelvin thinks.
“Why would Joe care that Andy was trading?”
Hmm, good question Kelvin. I wish you just bought my story, half of it was true.
“You saw Joe tonight. Who can say what he’s thinking? I mean, how crazy was that to watch?” Keep on asking Kelvin questions. He’ll get distracted.
“Yeah, that was really weird. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’ve been seeing a lot of things I’ve never seen before, like this bubble. It’s making people act strange. Look Ryan, you’ve always been square with me, so this isn’t personal. Please don’t take it that way, but I’m redeeming all MercuryOne’s coins on Friday when we reopen.”
Boom. There it is. Kelvin was always the smart one. He’s got a nose for bullshit. Even if he can’t pin the specific bullshit down, he can tell when something stinks. I don’t blame him, and I don’t take it personally. Smart fucking move heading for the exits before everyone else. Be first.
“Not a problem Kelvin. We’ll have a wire out to you on Monday. Your balance is somewhere around thirty-seven million?”
“$36,923,091. Send me confirmation once the wire goes out. Come talk to me after Icarus. There’s still a job offer for you Ryan.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. See you around Kelvin.”
***
Here we are, at cross purposes in Andy’s hotel room. The Bull God had the good sense to bow out. No need for him to bathe in the unbearable tension. He’s not in it deep enough to endure the hate we three have for each other. I can barely manage it myself. I intend to keep this short. There’s not much to say anyway.
“Andy,” I begin, “either the two hundred million finds itself in our Frankfurt account on Monday or I tip everyone off.”
“We need to put it all into BSTR. There’s an enormous opportunity here.”
“What opportunity? It’s down sixty percent in the last three hours. It’d be down more, but there are no buyers out there.”
“I can talk Joe out of this. I can change his mind. If we load up on coins, there’s a killing to be made.”
He’s serious about this. Don’t say a word Ryan. Don’t open your mouth. Think this situation through, give Nikola a chance to make some sense. This sounds like such a bad move that she’ll say something. She has to. While she’s finding the words, work out why Andy wants to do this. He either knows something that we don’t or he’s delusional. What could he know? This is a con. He’s working with Deacon Joe to drive the price down. That’s the only way he’d make this trade. Andy would only buy if he knew Joe was going to walk back the proposal.
There has to be more. What else? Joe could not have the votes. He needs 50.1% of coins to vote for the proposal. How closely held is BSTR? I know Joe has ten percent of all coins. I know the development team has ten percent. I know the foundation has ten percent. Okay, so assume thirty percent is in favor. He’s still short twenty. How much of Blockstar is controlled by insiders? I haven’t a clue. Does Andy? “What’s the angle Andy?” Nikola asks.
“No angle. Joe is just seeing this wrong. I seriously think he’s on drugs and just needs to straighten himself out a bit. This is his American Oystercatcher moment.” Andy answers.
“Bullshit.” I interrupt. “You wouldn’t suggest this based on your power of persuasion. It doesn’t matter anyway because you are putting all the money back in Frankfurt on Monday or I’m ratting us out to our clients before the situation gets any worse. I’d rather lose face with the exchanges and have them force you to liquidate, than face jail time for embezzlement.”
“Ryan, we’ll move enough money to cover Kelvin. We are going to trade the rest and we are buying BSTR. Don’t ruin this,” Andy says.
“Ruin what Andy? I can tell you aren’t manic, but I cannot see what the fuck you are doing. Why do you want to take a chance like this? We are in deep enough already. You can tell me the truth despite what we might feel about each other. What are you and Joe up to?”
“I still love you Ryan. You are still my brother. Joe and I are not up to anything. I can change his mind. That’s all.” Andy says.
“You’ve done such a good job of changing mine.” I reply.
“You are doing what I want aren’t you?” Andy asks.
“Fuck you Andy. I’m not doing this. You convinced Niko to do this, then the two of you dragged me along.”
Nikola looks up from her laptop. She’s been in the markets this entire conversation, following our argument with only one chunk of her brain, trading coins with the other. “I wasn’t convinced Ryan. Andy didn’t sell me on anything.”
I look over at her.
“This was your idea? You took this to Andy in the hospital in Maui?”
“Grow up Ryan. We both had the same idea. It’s so fucking obvious. I don’t get why you have a problem with this. You ruined our relationship by being a money prude.”
“Wow, you are heartless and stupid. What did I ever see in you? Maybe I’d have less of a problem if you two weren’t colossal fucking idiots who keep losing on these bets. I know when to fold them and it’s now. So, you lost twenty million today because Joe developed a conscience. You are still up thirty million on this whole borrowed money scheme. That’s some serious money. Put the rest back before you blow it again.”
My voice is on edge. I’m starting to get carried away. Calm down Ryan. Breathe back from ten. Old MacDonald had a farm.
“Not like you haven’t lost money.” Nikola’s glasses are on the bridge of her nose, she’s looking down her nose at me. She thinks I’m the stupid one here. Condescending bitch.
“AND I KNOW WHEN TO QUIT!”
“Twenty million is not enough Ryan. We are making a billion before Icarus is over and we are using the Blockstar meltdown as the springboard.” Andy says.
“What in the ever-loving FUCK do you know? Just tell me the angle!” I’m so close to losing my shit here. “There’s no angle. I know Joe. I am going to change his mind about this. Start buying Nikola. Pull enough out to pay Kelvin and put the rest in BSTR.” Andy tells her.
“Niko, for the sake of whatever we had together. Even if it was nothing to you, then for the pain you put me through, do not do this.”
“I don’t have time for feelings. I also don’t have time for your bromance gone wrong. I’m not a third wheel for a pair of dysfunctional fuckheads. I can’t work like this. The two of you sort your shit out. Kiss and make up or break up. We’ve got too much money out there to be dragging me into this while the markets are so screwed up.”
Nikola slams her laptop down, storms out of the room, leaving Andy and I alone. What the hell can I do with this guy? The two of them control our brokerage accounts. I’m not going to beat passwords out of them. I’m not that sort of a person. As far as I see it, I only have two moves, appeal to reason or force them out of the game by tipping our clients off.
Andy is sitting in his chair as calm as can be. He can see how angry I am, how close I am to thinking irrationally. He wants to push me over the edge. That’s what this placid demeanor is. That’s why he is projecting confidence in this trade. It’s a trick, a stunt, to get me to stop thinking clearly. He wants me to be angry and emotional. He wants me firing from the hip so he can exploit me. I cannot match wits with this guy. The smart move is not to try.
“Andy, either there’s two hundred million in our Frankfurt account Monday or I’m going to call all of our customers and tell them to submit full redemption requests to force your hand. We’ll never work in the space again, but I don’t care. It beats jail by a million miles.”
“Ryan, spend the long weekend growing a pair. We are so close. I wish you could see what I do. I love you man. Come along for the ride.”
“I can’t trust you, Andy. Whatever it is, I can’t trust you. Put the money in the bank.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got a flight out of San Antonio in the evening.”
“If this trade isn’t bulletproof by then, I’ll put all two hundred million back in Frankfurt. Okay Ryan?”
Andy tries giving me the no fucking around look, but I’m not having it today. I turn from him, look out the window at the new construction.
“Either the money is there on Monday, or I talk. Don’t go losing it on something as stupid as this. Deacon Joe is not someone you can exploit. He’s doing his own thing. Don’t be overconfident.” “Don’t think you know everything Ryan. Try growing a pair so you can stop using your brain all the time. Sometimes a job needs balls.”
Now it’s my turn to storm out of the room. The door slams behind me and I walk down the hall. I’m not staying here. I couldn’t bear to be around these guys any more than possible. Where is that elevator? I need to get back to my room, take some pills and chill the fuck out. Five more weeks. Just five more weeks of this shit.