Bitcoin short story by Bing chat


Jimmy was a curious and adventurous boy who loved to explore the old library in his town. He often spent hours browsing through the dusty books and magazines, looking for something interesting to read. One day, he stumbled upon a hidden section of the library that he had never seen before. It was behind a locked door that had a sign that said “Restricted Access”. Jimmy was intrigued by the mystery and decided to try to open the door.

He found a paper clip and straightened it out with his fingers. He then bent one end into a small hook and the other end into a thin L-shape. He inserted the L-shaped end into the bottom of the keyhole and twisted it slightly to keep some tension on the lock. He then used the hook to lift each pin inside the lock until it clicked into place. After several minutes of trial and error, he managed to pick the lock and open the door. Jimmy entered the room.

Inside, he saw shelves full of old computers, monitors, keyboards and other electronic devices. They looked like they had not been used for years. Jimmy wondered what they were doing there and who had used them. He walked around the room and noticed a desk with a laptop on it. The laptop was plugged in but turned off. Jimmy pressed the power button and waited for it to boot up.

The laptop showed a login screen that asked for a username and password. Jimmy tried to guess what they could be, but none of his attempts worked. He was about to give up when he saw a piece of paper sticking out from under the keyboard. He pulled it out and read what was written on it:

cactus puzzle ocean guitar castle rocket island cheese flower candle window music

Jimmy recognized these words as part of a mnemonic phrase that could be used to access a Bitcoin wallet. He had learned about Bitcoin from his older brother who was into cryptocurrency and had explained to him in detail how it worked. Jimmy wondered if this phrase belonged to someone who had stored some Bitcoin on this laptop.

He left the room quietly without touching anything else, locked the door behind him, then ran home.

On his desktop computer, he opened the web browser and typed in “bitaddress.org”. He clicked on “wallet” and then on “import wallet seed words”. Then it occurred to him that he should probably do this offline. He disconnected from Wi-Fi, then he entered the 12 words from the paper into the field that said “Enter your recovery phrase”. He clicked on “view details”. He copied the bitcoin address, cleared the cache, then connected to Wi-Fi and went straight to “blockchain.info” to see if the address contained any bitcoins.

To his astonishment, he saw that the address contained 50 bitcoins! That was worth tens of millions of dollars at today’s price! Jimmy couldn’t believe his eyes. He checked the transaction history of the address and saw that these bitcoins were from the very first block ever mined, also known as the genesis block. That meant that they could have belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin who had disappeared nearly two decades ago!

Jimmy felt a surge of excitement mixed with fear. He realized that he had just stumbled upon one of the biggest secrets in Bitcoin history. If he moved these coins into his own wallet, he would become rich overnight, but he would also attract attention from hackers, thieves, governments and other people who would want to get their hands on them or find out who Satoshi Nakamoto was.

Jimmy thought hard about what he should do next. Should he keep this discovery for himself or share it with someone? Should he move these coins or leave them untouched? Should he try to find out more about Satoshi Nakamoto or respect his privacy?

Jimmy decided that he would not move these coins into his own wallet. He felt that they were not his to take or spend. They were part of Bitcoin’s history and legacy, and moving them would cause too much trouble and controversy for him and for Bitcoin itself.

He also decided that he would not tell anyone about this discovery either. He felt that Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to remain anonymous for a reason, and revealing his identity or location would violate his wishes and put him in danger.

He decided that he would only keep this secret for himself as long as possible until someone else found out or until Satoshi Nakamoto himself came forward.

With a smile on his face, and a secret in his heart, he went back to the library to browse through more dusty books and magazines.

Improve your universe.

Here’s what works for me.

Balance. There are never enough hours in a day. Get some work done, have some fun, do something nice for someone else’s benefit, call it a day.

Don’t be afraid to block people on social networks that you feel are never going to learn, or that will make you stupider for following them.

Never get offended by anything anyone says. If you do, maybe you are wrong about your facts or are reacting emotionally.

Better to buy nothing, rather than to buy crap. Wait until you can buy one of a decent quality instead of settling for a cheap, low quality product. Watch out whom you encourage. You are voting with your money. Those you buy from will be there tomorrow. Those you don’t buy from will disappear.

You will be thought of as “great to talk to” the more you listen.

There’s always someone smarter than you, quicker than you, or better than you. But you can still improve yourself.

The more you give things away, the more you will have.

Help people whenever they ask. How often do you really get the chance?

Eat real food. This is more important than choosing between eating “plant-only”, carnivore, vegetarian, whatever. Avoid processed foods. Avoid vegetable/seed oils, sugars, and refined carbs like white bread, white pasta, white flour. Just eat real, whole foods.

Weight loss? Easy. Intermittent fasting. But really, these two words are the key: control hunger. It’s not about how much you exercise.

Build muscle. If you do a lot of aerobic exercise but still don’t feel healthy, here’s a nice change. Switch to 20 minutes of weightlifting or resistance training two times a week, working your muscles to momentary failure, and prepare to be amazed. Too involved? Do the farmer’s walk. Simple.

There is no such thing as “the economy”. It is a completely fabricated concept. Similarly, there is no such thing as “society”. There are only individuals. Every other group is virtual.

Learn about the non-agression principle. Coercing others (even by just encouraging government to do it for you) to do things to accommodate your view of how the world should be is a surefire path to destruction.

The universe doesn’t owe you anything. This realization should be more wonderful than scary.

Manage your own money. Don’t ever let a financial advisor touch it. They can not do what you do. They are shackled, they must protect your money, or lose their job. Only you can put your money at real risk, and risk is how you multiply your money. You can’t afford to just “save” for the future, when the value of money is melting away at ever accelerating rates. You have to multiply your savings.

Don’t try to make money overnight. That’s improbable. Patience. Money really does flow from the impatient to the patient.

Keep things simple with investments. Place your “bets” and wait. A few course corrections are okay. Don’t constantly make changes. Don’t try to protect your money by taking it out of play because you are afraid there’s going to be some kind of crash or “correction”. That’s when you get left behind.

You WILL get scammed. Learn from it, and move on.

Never scam someone else. This will not improve your universe. It will flush it down the toilet.

The mind can turn heaven into hell, and hell into heaven. Keep this in mind whenever your world seems to be collapsing.

If someone pulls a knife on you, it’s not a fight, it’s life or death. Run if you can. You probably won’t see it coming, so never let an offender get close in the first place. (I don’t know for sure, this never happened to me.)

If you find yourself blaming “this” government, or “this” leader, and think that the other parties or another leader would have done better, grow up.

The Golden Rule really works.

Take responsibility for your mistakes. Admit to them, and try to fix them. If you blame others, you’re screwed.

Just do it. Just go. Just be there. It’s a major ingredient for success.

Don’t be afraid to fail. That’s another ingredient for success.

Hate and grudges are poison. Mainly for you, not for the target of your hate. Move on. Your universe doesn’t need to include people who have wronged you. Revenge doesn’t work, it makes everything far worse.

Plan for the future. You probably will live long. Always put some effort for the present, and some for the future.

If life or your situation gets really bad (and it will), calm down, don’t despair, try to get through it without destroying things or relationships. The next day then has a much better chance of being a better one. Don’t hold grudges.

Don’t say something about someone that, if they heard you saying it, you would be unable to defend or you would be ashamed to say it to their face. It will still happen. Try to realize when you are doing it, and stop.

This is a tough one to do. If you have sleep issues, go to sleep at the same time every day, with the same bedtime routine whenever possible. Wake up at the same time every day. Try your best to accomplish this. Studies show that this is even more important than the number of hours of sleep you get. Sleep may feel like a waste of time, but those 8 hours “lost” are what can make the difference between an unproductive, depressing 16 hours awake, or a great productive, happy day.

Buy good quality tools. Never buy cheap tools. Then upgrade the ones you use the most by buying the best you can afford.

Socialism is the path to destruction of all that is good in the world. The current Pope (Francis) is a socialist. Socialism appears to be good at first glance, but it is based on violent coercion. Beware.