I started reading this because I thought it would probably be titanically stupid and I wanted to make a post that made fun of it, but it turned out to be kinda fun. It's a shortish read and the first chapter is probably the least enjoyable, so maybe skim it.
His boss, the lab director, wouldn’t hear it. “We raised money on the promise that we would monetize via crypto if we could. There’s a trillion-dollar bug bounty sitting there in the open. We’d be negligent not to claim it.”
“And so what,” the boss added. “Bitcoiners are unpatriotic profiteers anyway. Betting against the US dollar.”
The boss had grown impatient with the particle physics and chemistry simulations, which was all their limited hardware could handle for now. He was prone to dismissing these tasks as busy work until they could get to the “real stuff:” breaking open the cryptography that protected state secrets. If they could crack Bitcoin, they could scale up and become the biggest applied quantum lab on the planet.
“Yes, we might make a fortune, but this is max extraction,” said the scientist. “The world needs Bitcoin right now.”
Outside the lab, the world was fraying. Developed countries were sliding into default. Populations were aging, entitlements expanding, and the working-age base shrinking. Amid waves of inflation, Bitcoin had done well. It was trading at $571,000 that day.
“The world might be going to hell, but you don’t have anything to worry about,” said the lab director. “Your stock options just skyrocketed in value. And I have a mortgage in Pac Heights to pay for.”
“You’re overruled.” he continued. “Once I get the green light from legal we’re going for the coins.”
yeah, you know, I thought that too, especially because of the images...but I'm brave enough to say that I didn't mind it in this case. It was an entertaining story whether or not he used AI.
The cloud of suspicion surrounding AI and art (including literature) is seriously troubling. On Reddit artists are getting accused of AI left and right. At some point we might just have to settle on "I like it and that's that" and stop the witch hunt.
that's more or less where I am, although I confess to a little niggle of doubt that definitely takes away from the enjoyment of a piece one suspects.
With Carter's, I tried pretty hard to give it a shot, and it pulled me in. So I guess that is enough for me?
Whether or not Ai it sure made the story more enjoyable. A nice image makes the medicine go down! :)
Didn't plan on reading it. Opened it to peek at it. Read the first bit, enjoyed it and from there i read the rest. Quite enjoyable for brevity, suitable for my tiktok brainrot. Thanks for sharing !
That was kind of my experience as well. I think he could have even toned down some of the technical stuff and it still would have gotten the point across without sounding quite so hard sci-fi or preachy.
Sure yeah that could work, I'd imagine he was attempting to strike the right balance. I'm racking my brain for a periodical I used to read online put out by luminous figures in the bitcoin community. They have great covers and like twelve articles/stories per issue. I'm failing to remember the name right now but this is very reminiscent to that.I tried searching google but couldn't find it. They had really badass covers and were put out by the best of bitcoiners... (edit: Okay my brain finally woke up and remembered. https://www.citadel21.com)
I'd love to see more short stories like this. Things like this really engage a nocoiner. Touches on different intellectual palettes and is short enough to engage them in something they can talk about in their day to day life.
It could be reasonable decision in between.
What’s interesting here is how quickly principles get traded for opportunism once the scent of profit fills the room. You have a scientist urging caution and even acknowledging broader economic context yet the leadership is singularly focused on the jackpot. This tension between mission and monetization isn’t just about crypto it’s about any emerging technology that straddles the line between public benefit and private exploitation. The fact that Bitcoin is framed as both a lifeline in a collapsing global economy and a target to be broken underscores a larger truth about human behavior. Many will choose short term extraction over long term resilience if the reward is shiny enough. That’s what makes this scenario compelling not because of its tech fantasy elements but because it captures a very real type of decision making we see all the time