I toured the Bank of Japan recently with another Bitcoin buddy. It took many months to get on the waiting list. It was a surreal experience of windowless corridors, giant paintings of all the governors as if they were kings, and a quirky lecture on the primary roles of the central bank.
The emptiness and banality of it all was quite striking. The sense of unease, paranoia, and secrecy that permeated every corner of the building was palpable.
There were only a few places where we were allowed to take photographs. The old governor's office high up on the third floor had internal "windows" to look over the rest of the building like a panopticon prison.
Perhaps the most ironic bit, which was in all earnestness, were the ridiculous chocolate "gold coins" in the visitor centre and the teeny-tiny baggie of shredded Japanese yen bills that we were given as a thank you at the end.
It is hard to even mock or laugh at such a performance because it was done in such unashamed seriousness.
This is it.
This is what Bitcoin is going to replace. On a visual level, as well as a a conceptual one, there is a legacy system of empire and emperors that exist behind the cloistered veil of the institution of Central Banking. But by pulling back the curtain, or in this case, being welcomed inside for a tour, reveals that indeed the emperor has no clothes.