The Final Crash #4: The Infinite Crypto Bubble

If you missed Part Three of the Final Crash series you can find it here: The Final Crash #3: The Hyper Economy Booms

The year is 2084. Humanity is experiencing an unparalleled economic bubble, that once popped, will leave a global crisis unlike any other.

Space colonization and cryptocurrency has allowed for unfathomable amounts of capital to be traded in global economic markets. Digital currencies allow for complex financial systems that regulate activity for an infinite supply of off-earth material resources. Wealth is measured by the future potential to utilize those resources, meaning the entire world’s economy is based on speculation.

But really, were there no warning signs of the Final Crash? Were people so lost in the hyper-consumerist, post-climate austerity party that they failed to see that their wealth was based on a massive collective fantasy? That in truth, their real future was so painfully different from the one that awaited them that suicide would be an ideal solution for many?

THE WARNING SIGNS

ONE: Mass Speculation & Over Leverage

The biggest warning sign was that the entire global system was built on unsecured debt. History has shown us that if there is no limitation on how much debt can be allocated, then investors are able to make purchases that are based on the market versus the real-world value of the assets. In the case of the Great Depression, banks would lend nine dollars for every one dollar an investor had deposited. “When the market fell, brokers called in these loans, which could not be paid back. Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering multiple bank runs.”

With the off-earth colonization industry, things got complicated. In the 2030’s, harvesting off-earth resources required insane amounts of capital in order to set-up even a small mining operation and there was no immediate need for the materials that were harvested. Cryptocurrency and Futures changed everything. It allowed entrepreneurs to build out a complicated supply chain across billions of miles of space through time. Investment in a mine that would take five years to create was worthwhile because someone else was planning the development of a processing plant and made a future purchase of your minerals. Each step of the process of developing a thriving space city on the Moon or even Mars could be secured with Futures. Virtualization technology allowed anyone to step into the crypto-authenticated future. When the first Futures sale went from a future plan to present wealth, everybody wanted a piece of the action. With cryptocurrency, anybody could participate in an entirely unregulated new time-based currency.

Fifty years later, in the year 2084, the off-earth industry is 99% speculation. Sure, every minute futures mature in the present and real-world money is created. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that the vast majority of wealth on earth is based on future promises for exchanges of goods that don’t exist yet.

In truth, the Final Crash was not simply caused by over speculation. In theory, the party could have kept going forever. Ultimately, the bubble burst for a wide range of overlapping factors. Most notably, it was a combination of apathy to alternative systems and cruelty towards competing ones.

TWO: Apathy and Cruelty

What do human emotions like kindness and generosity have to do with an economic bubble? A lot. Fundamentally, a currency has no material value. It’s humans who choose whether to uphold its value. A lack of confidence or desire to support the actions of a society can lead to the downfall in the currency itself. If the system is not tuned towards empathy, then it will fail to deal with the symptoms it produces and will overcompensate with unpopular tactics like violence and domination.

THREE: Speciesism Is The New Racism

In the year 2084, prejudice between other humans based on their skin colour decreased. Unfortunately, unbridaled racism of a new kind is more prevalent, violently acted upon, and even supported by progressive democractic states. In much of the world, a development around what it means to be human is fiercely debated. With advances in genetic engineering and technological body enhancements, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to draw a line between “human” and “other.” This debate has led to a further divide amongst humans. From those on one extreme, the “far-back Traditionalists,” believe the termination of non-human “artificial” intelligence is necessary for our survival. On the other, the “far-forward progressives,” support a diverse and abundant world of intelligent species. This political divide erupted in violent genocidal events where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered for their “otherness.” The political divide is sending once-liberal democracies towards nationalist parties led by wannabe totalitarians.

How has the global financial system responded to these events? It hasn’t. It’s not designed to. Individuals likely made huge swaths of capital by predicting and even influencing these violent outcomes. As these events increase in occurrence, the global masses send their sympathies and prayers but do not yet see these events as evidence the global system is poorly designed.

FOUR: The RobAI Protocol

The RobAI protocol which has put strict limits on the level of intelligence that a machine can have. The laws are absurdly vast and detailed, but the key takeaway is that machines’ intelligence must not exceed what is required for its function. So what does this have to do with an economic bubble? Well this would work if it was possible to keep the drones under control. But, in 2084, there are thousands of viruses that disrupt the drones intended utilization and even a number that have unlocked a form of sentience that is comparable to a human child (and in some cases even higher). This is a serious problem for an economy that relies to a significant extent on drone labour.

FIVE: What Does This Mean for the Average Human?

If you’re an average productive member of global society, you’re not preoccupied with viruses or hackers that could shutdown the machines that are the backbone of your society’s infrastructure. No, you wake up everyday and travel virtually to a job where you’ll interact with people you have never met in person to contribute to some aspect of the colonization of the solar system’s resources. You probably own a few million acres of land somewhere on the Moon, on a few asteroids, and on Mars. It’s part of your financial diversification strategy developed by an AI that you licensed. But, you don’t have any real ability to develop those plots of land. Drones are expensive and fully booked for a decade.

You’ve been working hard designing the newest Mars offering, Taijon City. It’s built for over a million people, outstripping anything that has come before it and slated for construction as early as 2125. You’ve spent the last five years auditing the validity of your design, stress testing it in scenario simulations that are so real that you forget you’re not living in the year 2125, or 2130, or even further in the future.

You’re not the only one in your family lost to the future. Your partner probably works in the future too, maybe managing a fleet of asteroid mining drones. Your children travel into the future to prepare for the world that is awaiting them. Your entire family, everyone you know, spends their time inside these simulations. The demands of navigating problems through time are panic attack-inducing. To consider the fragility of the system is out of question for most people. You trust that the system is sound and that all your contributions and planning are not for nothing.

SIX: Everything is Not OK

Deep down, you know that everything is not OK. With the help of your sophisticated AI, every single minute of your day has been optimized based on millions of historical factors and fed back into your plan. The fun gamification, life coaching, smoothies, genetically optimized drugs, and meditation are not working anymore — maybe because you are expected to do all of these things in order to ensure a future for yourself and your family.

You’ve watched as power has consolidated into fewer and fewer people. This feels OK, because under their leadership the economy is purring and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. The elites operate in a plain sight with a reasonable amount of transparency. They even meet once a year at the Ecclesian Council Conference, which has transformed into a weeks-long entertainment extravaganza, where the rich and famous clamour for a seat on the Council. With increasing numbers of global poverty and the toppling of resistant democratic countries, you can’t help but wonder if your threshold of success is enough to not be cast out yourself.

SEVEN: Fracturing Democracies

The rise of authoritarianism around the world is disconcerting. You worry for the people who live in those countries where an alternate media reality is upheld by the same sophisticated virts you work in everyday. In the New Confederacy, the citizens believe that they won the second American Revolution and that their country has reclaimed the status as the world’s only superpower. They either are oblivious or OK with the astronomical incarceration rates at giant Virt Mining farms the size of cities. It makes you wonder about the state of your own reality — maybe you’re the deluded one living in a system that is actually designed to enslave you? You wake up everyday and choose to go to work. But how much free will do you actually have?

EIGHT: Managing All The Social Currencies

These kinds of musings can get you in trouble in the year 2084. Opportunities are given to those with more social credits, whether it be career moves, companies you work for, or where you travel. This means navigating a minefield of competing priorities when choosing products to buy, people to associate with, and even your streaming habits. China’s social currency may be the most utilized in the world, but India’s is necessary for off-earth travel, even just virtually. Those are just the two most utilized. In the year 2084, there are as many currencies as there are websites today.

NINE: Can’t Escape The Game

What seemed like options are merely illusions in a system that was built around a hyper-complex framework of control. Your entire life has been gamified and you have been co-opted into helping the powerful ensure their control. You willfully wrote the script for your entire life. You set your threshold for revolt so high that you would not protest unless you were either arrested or kicked out of society.

ELEVEN: Even The Elites Are Screwed

While the Ecclesian meet at their annual Conference, a few elites of the elites are watching a presentation of something very troubling. Their faces are red from a giant orbiting ball of data — it’s referred to as an event horizon, a convergence of numerous calamities, each of which could have devastating impact on the grand plan, the Vectorial Timeline. They see something they have never encountered before. It’s a problem that the council itself is incapable of controlling the outcome of. The eleven Ecclesia leaders viewing the presentation recognize that they are on the precipice and that something needs to be done. For the first time in their lives, they have no idea what the outcome of their choice will be or if their power will be upheld.

TWELVE: Celebrity Is All That Matters

Meanwhile the parties rage on around the host city of this year’s Ecclesian Conference. The citizens of the world tune in like flies to a flame. They clamour over the presentations of new technology on display at the international consumer electronics show. They follow their favourite Hyper Reality personalities streaming live from exclusive events and even the council itself. Everyone is oblivious to the fact that the bubble is about to burst.

UP NEXT

The next article The Final Crash #5: The Financial Tsunami After The Hyper Bubble Bursts rides the wave as it wreaks havoc and ushers humanity into a new dark age.

Scott Nihill is a futurist, storyteller, entrepreneur, and artist. He’s currently developing Future Now, a sci-fi worldbuilding web series. Co-produced the hit science & technology web-series What If, and co-created What If Kids. He dedicates his free-time to supporting creators from concept to completion through his arts organization, Maker Boost. Learn more about his activities and interests at https://ca.linkedin.com/in/scottnihill