A Reading from the Book of Blockchain

Crypto as Cult, Grift as Gospel, and the Fall of Babylon 2.0

Crypto is financial meth.

Addictive. Delusional. Engineered to make the high feel like freedom—right up until your teeth fall out and your future goes up in smoke.

I’ve never met a “crypto bro” who didn’t radiate the same manic energy as a tweaker halfway through a Red Bull bender, convinced they’re five minutes from cracking the code to generational wealth.

They’re not.

They’re five minutes from getting rugged.

What’s worse? The next wave isn’t fringe. It’s state-sponsored. It’s going to be mainstream, sponsored by the highest levels of our government.

Crypto is no longer a shadow economy. It’s the regime’s pet project—an institutionalized con, cloaked in innovation, designed to siphon capital from the gullible and the desperate. To require tribute from the billionaire and corporate class to the regime’s leaders—or else. You thought “pig butchering” was bad? Wait until you see what happens when governments get in on the slaughter.

This isn’t financial advice. I’m not a licensed anything. I’m just telling you what I won’t do: I won’t put a single dollar, euro, franc, pound, or peso into a single so-called “coin.”

Because I know how this ends.

It ends with tulips.

The Religion of Risk

“In nomine catenae cryptographicae, et tokeni, et sacculi digitalis oramus: sanctificetur clavis publica nostra.”

(Eye roll.)

Crypto sells itself as salvation. Its adherents make the priests of old look like cautious, ethical agnostics.

They claim that crypto promises liberation from central banks, middlemen, fiat decay, and state surveillance. It claims to be secure, nay, impossible to break. It claims to be truly universal—the one true money. Crypto wraps itself in the language of decentralization and freedom—libertarian catnip. On paper, it’s a compelling pitch: trust the code, not the cabal. Peer-to-peer finance. Permissionless prosperity.

“Tuum est enim regnum pecuniae, per quod omnes liberati sumus; nec erit pecunia a gubernio imperata, nam nummus a populo excavabitur, et a populo in mundum dabitur.”

But the actual structure?

It's a pyramid scheme built on a narrative of utter stupidity.

At its core, crypto is a religion of risk disguised as a movement of empowerment.

BLASPHEME! (I know—that part I won’t say in Latin.)

And like any good religion, it requires faith—blind, fervent, reality-detached faith. Not in God, but in code, and absolute gross stupidity. Truly. I mean, really stupid stupidity. Like, beyond stupidity.

Money works because of belief, too, but it works on a different kind of belief, namely, that collectively we will all accept the exchange medium for exchange. That’s the belief that’s required to make money work. At its core, we (the people exchanging the money), hope under most circumstances that the purchasing power of that money remains (more or less) constant in the short run, and in an ideal world, we hope the money remains constant in the long run as well.

(For those following along - that idea we call inflation.)

Now, if you’ve tithed your brain to the holy church of crypto, then the entire system only works if enough people believe the future price will be higher than today’s. That’s not innovation. That’s momentum trading with theological overtones.

It’s a Ponzi scheme with a cell phone attached to it. Moreover, the entire narrative of crypto?

It’s bullshit. Structurally, economically, ideologically—bullshit top to bottom.

Now sure, atheists might say Christianity or Judaism or whatever other belief system is also bullshit. And that’s fine—we can have that discussion in the comments. But crypto isn’t even in the same category. At least religion asks you to suffer in this life for something greater in the next. Crypto promises you Lambos now and leaves you broke later.

Decentralization? Most projects are functionally centralized. A handful of devs control the keys. A handful of exchanges control liquidity. A handful of wallets control the supply. The minute someone flips a switch or pulls a rug, your sovereignty disappears into a smart contract black hole.

Autonomy? Crypto isn’t eliminating middlemen. It’s inventing new ones—just with more memes, worse regulation, and zero accountability. They don’t wear suits. They wear hoodies and call themselves “degens.” But they still profit from asymmetry while retail holds the bag.

Even the coins themselves aren’t stable, aren’t scarce, and aren’t currency. They’re speculative abstractions with no productive yield, no intrinsic value, and no claim on real-world assets. It’s not a financial system. It’s a gamified belief engine.

And the belief engine works—until it doesn’t.

Then it’s Mt. Gox. Then it’s Terra Luna. Then it’s FTX. Then it’s some DAO hack no one can unwind. Then the high priests vanish, the exit liquidity dries up, and the congregation is left broke, bitter, and disillusioned.

But here’s the thing: they’ll come back.

Because in a post-truth, post-stability economy, people crave something. And crypto is engineered to scratch the itches modern life no longer satisfies: agency, upside, meaning. It sells rebellion, meritocracy, and destiny to people suffocating under wage stagnation, student debt, and institutional rot.

Crypto doesn’t work because it’s stable. It works because it’s mythic.

And myth is hard to kill—even when the math says it’s a lie.

The myth survives until the fire comes.
And the fire always comes.

The Institutional Hijack

There’s a saying in DC: if you can’t kill it, co-opt it.

Crypto was never going to be killed—at least not in the traditional sense. It had too many believers, too many memes, too much stupid money sloshing around looking for a dopamine rush and a moonshot.

So the regime did what regimes do: they took the myth and turned it into middleware.

What began as a rebellion has evolved into a regulatory infrastructure. BlackRock launches a Bitcoin ETF, and CNBC calls it a step forward. Fidelity offers crypto in your retirement account. The SEC holds hearings. Senators issue statements. The very system crypto was created to circumvent is now the one validating it—because once the state wraps its arms around a thing, it’s no longer a threat. It’s a feature.

You are no longer buying into financial freedom. You're buying into compliance with a new interface.

The irony is staggering. The same people who screamed about fiat tyranny are now cheerleading Bitcoin ETFs managed by trillion-dollar asset managers. The same “degens” who mocked regulation now mint KYC-compliant tokens and beg for regulatory clarity. The same “code is law” crowd now tweets at Gary Gensler like he’s their patron saint.

The ritual remains. The robes have changed.

May the Bitcoin be with you.
(And also with your token. Or spirit. Whatever the protocol allows.)

Crypto isn’t decentralized. It’s just been outsourced to a different class of priesthood—the ones who wear Patagonia vests and have JPMorgan and Citi on speed dial.

And now, the Trumps have entered the temple.

The same family that turned politics into a loyalty rewards program is now pushing crypto like it’s the second coming of Reaganomics. Trump has already signaled his willingness to make crypto a cornerstone of the 2025 economy—pledging to protect self-custody wallets, stop CBDCs, and turn the U.S. into a “crypto-friendly” nation.

Translation: he’s building an extractive ecosystem where coins are loyalty badges, wallets are identity validators, and participation in the new economy is permissioned by political allegiance.

This isn’t decentralization. It’s tokenized patronage.

You’re not escaping fiat control. You’re being drafted into digital feudalism—where the lords are influencers, the castles are exchanges, and your wallet is your oath of loyalty.

Trump’s court jester sons are hawking NFT trading cards. The MAGA ecosystem is primed for memecoins, voter perks, and digital bribery mechanisms indistinguishable from scams—but perfectly legal under deregulated campaign finance.

This is the end state of a “decentralized revolution” that never was: the strongman embraces the protocol not to liberate, but to license it. And his followers cheer because they still believe the code will save them.

But make no mistake—the code belongs to the king now.

The libertarian dream was dead the minute the big players realized they didn’t have to crush it. They could bottle it, brand it, and sell it back to you at a markup. Wrapped in compliance. Delivered via Coinbase. With a sticker that says “Web3.”

And let’s not kid ourselves—this isn’t about crypto anymore.

It’s about programmable finance. Or as I call it—pro-flammable finance: a system designed to combust under pressure.

The same rails being laid by crypto bros in Discord are now being duplicated—quietly, efficiently—by central banks and payment processors. The U.S. is testing CBDCs. The EU is exploring a digital euro. China already rolled out theirs. Visa and Mastercard are investing in blockchain settlement layers. It’s not about ideology. It’s about control.

When the state finishes what the scammers started, they won’t need to outlaw cash. They’ll make it incompatible.

And once the switch flips—once participation in the economy is gated by wallet access, verified identity, geofencing, or social credit signals—it’s over. The system doesn’t need to ban dissent.

It can just cut off your access.

You wanted permissionless prosperity. What you’re getting is conditional participation.

Because in the end, crypto isn’t the revolution.

It’s the testbed.

The Post-Capitalist Grift Economy

Crypto isn’t the disease. It’s a symptom.

We are in a monetized hallucination—a gamified ecosystem where wealth is not created, but extracted. Where every asset becomes a narrative. Every grift becomes a brand. Every Ponzi becomes a product… until the liquidity runs out and everyone moves on to the next one.

Crypto is just what happens when the mask slips.

Crypto is by far the most honest dishonest thing in finance today. It doesn’t pretend to produce. It doesn’t even really pretend to protect. It simply packages volatility as opportunity and sells it to people who have nowhere else to go.

Why? Because the real economy is dead. The avenues to build real wealth—buy a house, start a business, save for retirement—have been systematically walled off for anyone born after 1980. Wages stagnate. Debt balloons. Housing is a speculation racket. Every public company is now a buyback factory. Every startup is a story looking for a greater fool. Even the government is in on the act—turning stimulus into market distortion and QE into permanent background noise.

This isn’t capitalism.

This is Extraction-as-a-Service.

And crypto fits perfectly.

It doesn’t require regulation. It doesn’t require trust. It doesn’t even require usefulness. It just requires one thing: a bigger fool.

Because that’s what this is now: a fool’s economy. A casino wrapped in a whitepaper. A lottery system for the dispossessed, the delusional, and the desperate.

And before you scoff at the desperate, remember this:

In a system this rigged, desperation becomes a rational response.

If you’re 28, drowning in debt, can’t afford rent, and know damn well Social Security won’t be there for you—what’s irrational about chasing a 1000x return on a shitcoin? You know the whole thing’s a scam. But so is everything else. At least this scam is honest about it.

So crypto becomes not just a bet—but a confession.

A confession that the real economy is no longer for you. That the only chance left is to game the meta, sell the story, flip the bag, and get out before the music stops.

You don’t need a job. You need a token.

You don’t need skills. You need timing.

You don’t need a future. You need a meme.

This is not freedom. It’s what happens after freedom—when all the ladders have been pulled up, and you’re left standing in a gamified wasteland trading illusions for digital scraps.

Insert: The Tulip Interlude

I said this ends with Tulips, and I meant that. Before we get to the end of this story, let me tell you how and why I know how the crypto story will end.

Tulips. You know, the flower. They predominantly grow in one country in the world, the Netherlands.

So imagine this… dateline… 1637. The Dutch Republic. A single tulip bulb—yes, a literal plant—was traded for the equivalent of a house. Why? Not because tulips were productive. Not because they held intrinsic value. But because someone believed someone else would pay more tomorrow.

The NFT of the 1600s baby. Flower bulbs. These flower bulbs were going for 150 thousand dollars a throw (about 5500 guilders back in 1637). That’s how out of control “Tulip mania” was at the height of the market.

It was the original “greater fool” theory—centuries before blockchain, before JPEGs, before Twitter threads with rocket emojis.

People mortgaged farms. Sold dowries. Built entire financial projections around a flower that could rot in a week. And when it collapsed, it wasn’t just a market crash. It was a mass psychosis snapping back to reality.

Now, you may be saying, “That’s insane! Who the hell sells everything they own to buy flowers for God’s sake?”

Yeah. Exactly, who he hell does that?

Well, let’s talk about how this all happens, and why by the mid-1600s, people are selling everything they have to buy flower bulbs. Then you’ll understand exactly how (and why) crypto is just yet another case of meth head finance.

In the late 1500s, tulips were introduced to Europe from the Ottoman Empire. By the early 1600s, they’d become a luxury good in the Dutch Republic—a symbol of wealth, taste, and status. The rarest varieties—those with vivid streaks and "broken" colors caused by a mosaic virus—became the most coveted.

That’s the origin point. But then came the speculation.

By the 1630s, tulip bulbs weren’t just flowers. They were futures contracts. Traders bought and sold options to acquire bulbs they didn’t even own yet, to be delivered after harvest. No one wanted to grow tulips. They wanted to flip them.

Bulbs changed hands dozens of times before ever touching soil.

Taverns became makeshift trading floors. Sailors, bakers, and barbers mortgaged homes to buy into the market. Bulbs were bartered for land, livestock, and dowries. A single bulb of Semper Augustus was said to trade hands for the price of a townhouse on Amsterdam’s Herengracht canal (5500 guilders) or roughly $150,000 today.

So basically, in 1637, we had collateralized flower securities. CFSs—essentially, traded at hypervelocities. It was the first recorded instance of a financial asset completely divorced from utility. No one cared about the flower. They only cared about the story and the right to trade it.

And like all good derivatives of derivatives, it all ended, and right quick. The Big Floret.

Sometime in early February 1637, when people came to sell their exaggerated tulip bulbs, a buyer refused to buy. Then another. Then, another. Suddenly, the market liquidity collapsed.

People refused to pay the going price. Bids disappeared. Buyers vanished. Prices collapsed overnight.

The contracts—technically unenforceable under Dutch law—became worthless. Fortunes were lost. Reputations ruined. The government refused to intervene. And by summer, tulip trading was a historical curiosity—shorthand for collective madness.

Rugged by tulip bulbs.

Tulip Mania wasn’t the beginning of financial capitalism—it was the first time the world realized that value is just a narrative with a buyer.

Now, back to the present day.

Revelation

When the first seal broke, a rider appeared—the white horse, crown upon his head, bow in his hand.

Innovation, they called him. The promise of victory. Of a new economy.
He rode the blockchain and conquered the old guard. Or so it seemed.

When the second seal broke, the red horse thundered forth.

Speculation, they called him. Volatility was his weapon.
He carried a sword made of leverage, and with it he took peace from the earth.
Portfolios rose, then bled. Fortunes minted, then erased.

Then came the third: the black horse, with scales in his hand.

Grift, they called him. He came not to build, but to weigh.
“A day’s wages for a single coin,” he cried, “and see thou hurt not the narrative.”
His was the reign of scarcity, of memes and markets without meaning.
Not scarcity of resources—but of truth.

And the fourth: the pale horse.

Collapse, they whispered. His name was Death, and the protocol followed with him. He brought the terminal rugpull. The loss of trust. The flattening of everything. Not just coins, but currencies. Not just finance, but the fiction of stability itself.

And lo—when the fifth seal broke, there was silence from the altars.
No more believers. Just wreckage.
Just the echoes of promises never kept.

And then upon the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake.
And the system shook.
The “immutable” was unmade.
And all the screens went black.

This is the religion upon which the crypto risk is borne. This is the salvation they promise.

And yes, I am being intentionally parallalistic. And intentionally flippant. And intentionally patrimonialistic. And intentionally pejorative.

If we’re going to compare them in honesty, then crack open your “good book,” to the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation of John:

“For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies”
— Revelation 18:3

Crypto began as rebellion and became religion. Then the state made it doctrine.

Now we live in Babylon 2.0—chain-verified, wallet-gated, and branded with high-res JPEGs of cartoon monkeys.

The faithful still believe. They pray at the altar of the token. They share prophecies in Telegram threads. They tithe in gas fees. They evangelize with whitepapers and discount codes.

But the temple is already burning.

“For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.”
— Revelation 18:17

The signs are everywhere. Ruggings. Exchange collapses. Memecoins promoted by washed-up celebrities. Regulatory crackdowns rebranded as “clarity.” The very architecture that promised decentralization now enforces surveillance.

You can’t exit. You can’t opt out. You can only comply—until the backend breaks or the frontend bans you.

“No man buyeth their merchandise any more... the merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off, weeping and wailing.”
— Revelation 18:11-15

The kings of the earth have drunk from the chalice. They’ve tokenized the economy. The protocol belongs to the strongman now. He has branded it, sanctified it, and licensed it. He will offer you coins instead of bread, loyalty tokens instead of wages, and call it prosperity.

And when the music stops, when the code collapses, and the liquidity drains?

He (they) will be fine.

You will be rugged.

Because crypto was never your revolution.

It was your test.

And most of you failed.

“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
— Revelation 18:4

You don’t need a token to be free. You need exit velocity, a strategy, and the courage to stop mistaking the simulation for salvation.

Because the next system won’t come with a whitepaper.
It will come with a collar.

Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.

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