“Hey, children, hear that sound, everybody look what’s going down.” Buffalo Springfield 

* * *

Listen. The music has stopped. The sound you hear is the herd stampeding to the exits. What’s going down?

It disappeared faster than a lightning bolt. With just the click of a computer keyboard, billions of crypto currencies vanish without a trace, no trail, vaporized into a cryptic world thinner than air. And guess what? Your stash, your dreams of wealth, up in smoke.   

Was it a dream? Social media lights up the digital world, asking questions: “What happened to the money?” Rich yesterday, busted today. How can so much vanish in the blink of an eye?

Fingers point, accusations blame: Fraud, deceit, embezzlement. Answers are demanded. But none come. The crypto universe is mute. The Voice that called it into existence no longer speaks.

We remember how it began. He was a MIT genius, a financial wizard that comes along every so often. He spoke with the voice of authority, “Let there be money,” and if as by magic there was money, money created out of thin air. How?

Easy. The Voice thought, “I will parallel my world of crypto currency after the Federal Reserve’s world of ‘fiat’ and call it crypto.” And then The Voice speaks, and that which was not now is. And he looked upon it and said, “It is good. Something from nothing.”  So it seems. But wait, there’s more.

The Voice continues to speak, extolling the virtues of his creation, pandering to the unstable souls drooling with greed to become the next billionaire. The vaults overflowed, so much money, I’ll give some away, he says. I’ll buy politicians for power, lavish largess upon charities. My status will be elevated beyond measure.

The Mystic’s magic mushroomed like an enormous nuclear cloud. It sucked into its vortex all those unrooted in common sense, those who thought “nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’” were just words from a song by Billy Preston in 1974. The toxic fallout was soon to reveal the error of their thoughts.

And so it did. Here we are today, asking to no one listening, “Where’s my money?” The Voice, our guru of financial legerdemain, our cult leader, where is he? He disappeared, like the money. But we’re asking for the wrong person. Consult your mirror, it will answer immediately.

The carnival has moved on, leaving its litter of dashed hopes and dreams strewn over the failed financial landscape. Someone else is left to clear the debris of this failed enterprise.

How did this happen, we ask? Now what? And just then it begins to sink in…fools gold. And we were fools to believe that nothin’ from nothin’ yields somethin’.

Lest we of like passions contemplate casting stones, let’s close the door on this gordian knot, this latest saga of hysteria run wild. We’ll do that by seeking wisdom from a Rubaiyat by the 11^th Century Philosopher-poet Omar Khayyam, one who well knew those passions:  

 

     “The Worldly Hope men set their

       Hearts upon Turns Ashes—or it

       Prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon

       the Desert’s dusty face Lighting a little

       Hour or two—is gone.” 

* * *

      No advice is offered except this: Better luck next time.

 

Bud Hearn

December 1, 2022