Outside, the streetlights cast long shadows on the cobblestone alleyways of Lisbon’s old quarter. She had chosen this café deliberately—anonymous enough to disappear, yet warm enough to soothe the constant tension she carried with her.
She exhaled, rolling the porcelain cup between her palms, staring blankly at the dark liquid inside.
"Alias and Steenberg?" she wondered ...
Two men who, at first glance, seemed like absolute opposites. One, a ghost moving in the periphery, designing systems that would outlive him. The other, a pillar of institutional power, a man who was the system.
And yet…
Ava narrowed her eyes, thinking back to the countless conversations she’d had with both of them—Alias, with his deep skepticism toward human nature, and Steenberg, with his wry, knowing smirk.
They both saw the world through the same unforgiving lens, and both saw a Hobbesian world, where people behave like wolves with one another.
They did not believe in the natural goodness of humanity. They did not share the illusions of idealists who thought human beings, left to their own devices, would naturally organize themselves in harmonious cooperation.
No.
They both saw conflict as the default state. A world where the strong took what they could, where the weak suffered what they must, where authority—real, unquestionable authority—was the only thing standing between order and chaos.
And yet…
She sighed, setting the cup down, letting the weight of her thoughts settle in.
Alias and Steenberg may have shared this core understanding of power, but their solutions were fundamentally different.
For Steenberg, the only way to prevent catastrophe was through institutional power—centralized, structured, and enforced with unwavering authority. He did not just believe that people needed to be protected from each other. He believed they needed to be protected from themselves.
She could hear his voice, measured and certain:
"People don’t make rational choices, Ava. They make emotional ones. They panic. They gamble. They self-destruct. You think you’re helping them by giving them autonomy? No. You’re handing them the rope to hang themselves."
To Steenberg, institutions—central banks, regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies—were necessary guardians, not because he was power-hungry, but because he genuinely believed that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.
He had once compared it to nuclear safety:
"We don’t let just anyone handle uranium, do we? Because one mistake, one miscalculation, and it’s catastrophe. Finance is no different. Money is power. And power in the wrong hands is always dangerous."
In his world, people were children—capable of incredible things, yes, but also prone to destruction. And his job was to ensure they never wandered too far from the safety of the walls he helped build around them.
Alias, on the other hand…
Alias also believed people needed to be protected from each other. But he rejected the idea that they needed protection from themselves.
If Steenberg’s world was a fortress, Alias’s world was a tightrope. A world where every step had consequences, where every misstep was final, but where every individual carried the full weight of their own choices.
"Steenberg thinks we’re children," Alias had once told her, his voice laced with irritation. "He thinks we need a parent. He thinks we need an authority that can step in, unwind our mistakes, save us from our own decisions. But that’s not protection, Ava. That’s dependence."
For Alias, the answer was not centralized control, but irrevocability.
A system where no one—not a banker, not a government, not a judge—could alter a commitment once it was made. A world where trust wasn’t needed, because the technology itself made dishonesty impossible.
"A blockchain doesn’t care who you are, what your intentions are, or what story you tell afterward," he had said. "It just enforces reality. And if people know they can’t take things back, they start making better decisions."
That was his fundamental belief: that true responsibility could only exist in a world where actions had unchangeable consequences.
She leaned back in her chair, exhaling slowly.
Both men saw the same problem: human nature.
But Steenberg wanted to contain it. Alias wanted to force people to confront it.
One built walls to protect society from itself. The other built a mirror—so that every person would have to face their own reflection.
Ava picked up her cup, now empty.
"The irony," she murmured to herself, "is that they’d probably respect each other if they weren’t trying to destroy one another."
