Thappad se dar nahi lagta, saab, crypto se lagta hai. (Sir, I am not afraid of a slap, I am afraid of crypto. Cue Dabangg (a 2010 Bollywood action film).)
There. Those are my thoughts about cryptocurrency.
I know of them through my tech-savvy brother. There was a brief period of history during which he lived in the USA, and that’s when he invested in Bitcoin.
Aur kya hona tha? Wahi jo Sheldon mamu ke saath hua. (And what else could have happened? The same thing that happened with Sheldon.) His system crashed suddenly. He didn’t remember the seed phrase or have any backup elsewhere. Now the damn coins are floating on the blockchain forever with no access.
If only he had memorised the damn phrase, I would be in a mountain resort now, somewhere away from humanity, meditating away my migraine.
So thanks, but no thanks.
I am already struggling with a perimenopause-induced frog of a memory that jumps and crashes anywhere and anytime with no link to the trail whatsoever. I can’t even trust it to remember a seed phrase for as long as it takes me to drink a draught of water and get back to typing. Long-term investment with a leaky memory seems like a crisp joke that got rained on for not investing in a cheap umbrella.
I would rather trust my hard money in the form of cash that is soiled and tattered, which tells me it is on its own way to nirvana too. And then there are my three trusted musketeers: my UPI passwords that I have forced myself to learn by rote. Although I wouldn’t mind forgetting them if I were arrested digitally and forced to give them away to some lanky teenager in jeans that are sagging off his barely-there arse.
Have you observed that we find it difficult to spend money that is actually in our presence—in our hands? Money stored online makes it easy to lose it all to our addictions—gambling, shopping, or gaming—seeking to buy peace, calling it pleasure, and then trying to drown in a thin soup of regret, guilt, shame and self-hate.
Nope. Forgive this middle-aged crone who prefers to live under her bored rock, but I would like to stay away from such shenanigans.
Unless…
Unless Jaafar Jackson decides to auction his fart.
If he is, then I had better start investing now. I am enamored by the dishy lad and have spent many a day mooning over his saucy arse in the movie version of the song “Human Nature.” In dim-lit theatres while watching Michael countless times, trying really hard not to leap into a dance and make a fool of myself, I did wonder if I would ever get to see him (and of course his saucalacious* arse too) up close and personal.
He is too famous now, so I doubt I will.
His fart though? Quite within reach if I invest well now, no?
Woh crypto hi kya jo ek fart na kharid paaye? (What kind of crypto is it that can’t even buy a fart?)
Aakhir dono ek jaise hi to hain? (After all, aren’t the two similar?)
Garam hawa. (Hot air)
*My new invention: a freshly minted word Saucalacious (adjective) means exceedingly dishy, highly attractive, or delightfully scandalous.
Care to drop a tiny pearl from the ocean of your mind?