‘Amos’. Rummaging through the saucepan…looking for some leftover matooke…nothing…rice…nothing. ‘AMOS!’ ‘Mother?’ ‘Come here you foolish boy. Didn't you hear me call you?’ ‘I did’. ‘Where is all the spiced rice and meat I left in this saucepan? It was enough for our family breakfast?’ ‘I sold it for sats mother’ ‘Ooh..really? Hmm. Did you send them to our SACCO account?’ ‘Yes mother’. ‘Ah, maybe you're not so foolish. Your father would have skinned you alive. Here, get this money’ she handed him a thick bundle ‘and go buy us some bread. You can buy yourself some of Uncle Mark’s samosas. I know you like those’. Amos excitedly ran to put on his slippers. He was soon jumping across the sewage that flowed through Kuyiriba slum.

Kuyiriba was a massive slum that had emerged in Africa courtesy of massive waste dumping from Big AI/Robotics corps. Big Bitcoin Hodlers held a major stake in these companies, which is why there was extreme polarization between the haves – AI invested Bitcoin hodlers who built megacities sitting on GW of previously useless energy, which attracted millions of people to work informally around them, hence slums like Kuyiriba containing millions of have nots – Kids like Amos whose families saw the LN as the only way to build a financial future. Because for better or worse, below a certain social standing, AI never multiplied one's wealth. It was a pass-time.

“But that is where the goody goody story ends” Samson Lamecka told the man next to him, then he tasted his beer. “With these two diametrically opposed use cases - The LN in low-income communities, and the Hodling in big wallets with a big stake in legacy AI, a clash is expected. If the LN makes more money on the ground (and underground, he said to himself) than those holding then you can be sure Bitcoin-targeting legislation will shift towards taxing that”.

Which is what was starting to happen despite the monoliths that were super AIs and super rich people in skyscraping towers. The money was disappearing. Governments were competing at inflating it away. Even as they could afford legacy banking or legacy AI jobs like software developers and financial analysts, the janitors, garbage collectors, cooks who lived on the fringes of the city were amassing economic power faster. Legacy robots couldn't clean the city worth a damn, and most people didn't need AI. Accepting to live and die at the bottom, as long as they kept their sats close to their chests. And passed them on to their children. So inflation was starting to bite the banksters and not the bankless. Very interesting.

“Say, do you also buy premium AI services using Bitcoin?” asked a man sitting next to Samson in the local bar. “Nah. That's how you stay poor. It will be sucked up by Big Hodlers. If they don't spend on AI with sats, we won't spend on AI with sats”. “I collect and recycle garbage. The hell I need AI for?” He could also program Bitcoin core and Chaumian signatures but he didn't want to brag. Besides, some people here could do it. It was a man's work. Not like the spoilt rich kids in ivory towers.

A year later, inflation had become so bad that Samson sometimes had to carry a bag of PX, the local AI currency, to make transactions.

Why it could go on, however, was because the government was in charge of the 40 GW resource that powered the AI and Bitcoin at the heart of their world's commerce. Even after inflating away the price of power to fall to $ 0.01 per KWh, this was still worth $400 million per hour. As you can guess, mostly paid for by the “poor” via the LN network, not the “rich” (actual poor) who plugged into AIs from morning to dusk. See, there was no actual UBI. No free goodies AI utopia. Kuyiriba was proof of this. Proof that the blue collar workers were still the pillars on which civilization rested. And proof that if the plebs learn financial discipline, then they can win.

2 years later, the Bitcoin tax men started knocking on doors. The worst taxmen ever. A heavy knock knock knock. Authoritative. “OPEN UP!”

Samson opened. “You're under investigation for operating a money transmitting service without paying taxes”. They asked him for his laptop. He handed it over and their technician booted it. “You have been using Chaumian signatures and zkSNARKS to do Bitcoin transactions. They are forbidden”. They opened his laptop and saw nothing. Not even one application. Not even recycle bin. “We traced anonymous zkSNARK activity to your cluster of addresses, Samson.” “Show me the evidence on my laptop then.” he countered. They couldn’t. It was air-gapped and clean as a whistle. “Well…” “Well?” “You have to file your tax returns buddy” “Yes. Follow me”. He led them outside. They moved out. A crowd had formed outside. Samson was their guru, like his mother and grandmother before him. Grandmother was the first person to learn about Bitcoin back in those days.

Nearby was another house. He went in and a crowd followed. In an adjacent room to the door, heavy bales of paper money were nicely tied up like new notes. Except they were old and were worth about a year's wage in garbage collection. Must have weighed a ton too. “My earnings for last year. I'll be filing them tomorrow”. The crowd laughed.

They moved out and more people had arrived. “We heard loud sounds so we came to help”, said a young man at the head of the crowd. It was like the entire village had come over. “Keep your distance if you know what's good for you”. The team lead pulled out a sat phone as they walked away. “Hello sir….Yes, we cannot touch him. He has wiped everything…I couldn't see anything I swear. I did all possible checks…. Okay. Noted”. The man at the other end of the call owned 1 million BTC. He smiled. “Never thought I'd sit at the round table with a garbage collector” he chuckled. He wondered if they had underground tunnels under which they had buried their real technology and assets. Like the Vietnamese, except not communist. Or were they communist? Nah. Self-organised voluntaryist Bitcoiners. It was an interesting development. The price would go higher for sure. The President was going to call soon, no doubt.

Meanwhile, 1000 miles in another direction sat the man with the power. He received the news of what had transpired in Kuyiriba that morning. Nobody had given up any Bitcoin and yet he knew they were transacting multiple millions of sats every day. It could be seen onchain. Just who was transacting what amount with who was a mystery. Also, the Bitcoin Hodlers and their super reserves had him by the balls. Oh well, he owned the electricity. He could cut them all off. The bastards and their money. And now their growing connections…! “Margret”. No answer. “MARGRET!!” Nothing. “Sir?” came a distant reply after a few seconds. “I was picking up your laundry”. “Call the Minister of Energy and The Governor of the Central Bank”. When the two men arrived, he offered them tea and biscuits and they talked about the weather and so on. Eventually, he fired the second one and gave the power he’d had to the first one. The first one was now to work directly with him. To the second one, “Don't take it the wrong way Mike. It's time to survive. To cut back”. “I understand”. The man with the power bid them farewell then he sat to ponder his next move. He’d always hated fasting. But he had too. He controlled the energy, so he would remain relevant in this game of 3D chess.