My name is Chad.  No really, this part is true.  I’m THE Chad and I’m about to describe a whole crapload of the internet world that will probably blow your hair back.  Unbelievable, and yet, completely rooted in cybersecurity, science, reality, and truth. 

     I started getting into cryptocurrency in 2011-2012.  It was 2.5 years after Bitcoin’s (hereto further referred to as ‘BTC’) launch.  It was 6-8 months after “Bitcoin Pizza”, which minted BTC’s legacy: Digital “coins” wrapped in cryptography, only worth what people were willing to pay for them.  Duh, right.  Everything is only worth what people are willing to pay for it.  But it stands to reason that the spirit of the movement was “financial risk-taking because the entire generation distrusts modern finance” and “can’t beat ‘em, so fuck ‘em”.  The beginning of the truly unrecoverable loss of trust in modern financial tools and institutions, and the inevitable depegging of USD ($) for worldwide transactions.  I invite you to think about Bitcoin’s value a little bit differently.  Since World War 2’s aftermath, the major global financial institutions have all agreed to settle large transactions using USD.  There are thousands of reasons why this makes sense… for America… But nowhere else.  It might be time to settle transactions with something else.  Something a little more reliable? 

     If you don’t know by now, for 200 years, the United States has played on the world stage bullying the little guys into submission.  Is it really any wonder why American taxpayers pay billions and trillions every year to maintain America’s supremacy.  Supremacy as a world power by spending more than literally everyone else combined, on the tools you might need if you were going to be able to bully people professionally.  We also bankrolled GPS.  All non-Americans are welcome for my charitable gift.  The United States raced to the front of the pack to spend on military because it’s the only way to keep people from experiencing their own flavor of freedom.  *gasp* *shocked Pikachu* WE KILLED SO MANY PEOPLE.  Like fr fr.  Why not?  It makes sense when you think like a degen.   

     The internet also likes to colloquially name things like ‘meme’ and ‘degen’. Wikipedia states that a meme (pronounced meem) is “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.  A meme acts as a construct for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.  A meme has a predictable pattern that results in the same cringe of irony, making you lol, which is tantamount to a physical “heh”, because you also get the joke. 

     ‘Degen’ is a shortened version of the term ‘degenerative’, which Wikipedia states is merely a “semantic drift” for being a ‘douche-canoe’.  ‘Douche-canoe is…’  jk jk fr fr.   

     ‘Degen’ describes a self-aggrandizing, narcissistic person with a raging boner for dopamine cycles.  This person is unable to function without receiving constant feedback and attention for being divisive and saying things for shock value.  After all, it generates the most ratings.  It may surprise you, but they do that on purpose. [$ShockedPikachu] I’ll identify the memes as we go along, get your bingo card. 

     Since the next generation finds the internet to be home, popular people are still popular, but the truly sociopathic become crypto influencers of some kind.  It’s an easy subject to sensationalize, it’s not truly well understood yet, like other technologies, and the next generation finds its innovation to be exciting, I think.  But it’s still complicated.  It’s not as easy as email and can’t be, yet.  The followers are 99% hype, just like the influencer is.  They’re also thirsty for some dopamine cycles.   

     It may surprise you that they don’t have good opinions on crypto trends rooted in some sort of strict foundation of logic.  “You’ll PAY me TO tweet dumb shit on Twitter?  OK, done”. [$MoneyPlease] 

     So, everything about them is predictable.  As we all will see.