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rattlung · 5 years

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i wanted to get this out for halloween but then it ended up getting (and taking) too long so i was like aight whatever i’ll split it and post the first bit so i know at least some of it will be in time for the spooky scary. not that it’s really spooky scary, but yknow

anyway the second i saw cowboy mirage and vampire crypto i knew i had to write a wild west au with them. if any of you knew me from my glory ovw days, you know wth im talkin about.

so anyway, slooow burn, animal death, blood, blood drinking, and possible ooc-ness because i couldn’t decide on whether i wanted mirage to have a very thick southern accent or not so his dialogue may be a bit whack. also with it being an au, characterization probably got skewed to shit. sorry about that :^(

cross posting fucks up formatting, so to be safe here’s the ao3 link but if that’s not the jam for your bread, it’s all under the read more

=======

The sun had set hours ago, but Elliott remained at his post.

Crickets and grass were his only companions on his porch, not even a candle was lit to keep him company. He didn’t want anyone to know he was out there and the little flame would have given him away. Besides, the moon was high that night and the stars glittered from behind it thanks to the cloudless sky. His eyes had adjusted well enough, and the open fields of the farm didn’t provide enough shadows to cause much concern.

No, Elliott was confident he’d catch who he wanted tonight, it was only a matter of whether or not the little bastard would show up.

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair to rest his crossed arms on the railing of the porch, then placed his chin on them. He hoped whoever it was would show. He couldn’t afford another big hit to the stock again. In the last week, he’d lost three chickens - one of them was the hen he’d sank three dollars into earlier in the month. It’d been a good one, too, healthy eggs up until she went missing with two of her sisters.

It was like nothing Elliott had ever seen before. There were never any carcasses left in the coop or on the land, no blood and maybe only a few stripped feathers. Coyotes were never that clean - not in Elliott’s experience anyway. And to take so many at a time?

Then the marks started showing up on the cattle. Two clean little holes at their shoulders that Elliott would have missed had it not been for the blood that oozed out of them, staining their fur a rusted brownish red.

That changed things. The body-less crimes started making sense, because they weren’t being killed - they were being stolen. Chickens were easy to make off with. Just toss a few in a bag and be on your way. Cows, though, they were marking those. Maybe one man was sent to scope out the pens to pick out the healthiest ones, then send off a crew to look for the marks and round them up to bring them home.

Elliott fought off a yawn and the on coming sense of second guessing himself. They would be coming with a group. He hadn’t thought of that before. If they did show up tonight and they were armed, there would be very little he could do with his mother’s old rifle. Quickly he decided he wouldn’t leave the porch if he saw anything. Just fire off a few shots and hopefully scare them off.

All of the Witts had met unfortunate ends. Two Witt sons died in the war, one to the flu soon after his third birthday, their mother to the plague - and the last Witt, dead to a bullet wound received while defending the cow that sneezed on him that very morning?

Yeah, no thank you, he’d stay right there on the porch, yes, ma’am.

So sit he did, scanning the horizon, the treeline, the pens, and tried not to fall asleep. He wondered if Ms. Williams had any hounds she’d be willing to part with to do this kind of stuff for him. Growing up, he’d always wanted a farm dog and Anita Williams trained some of the best he’d ever seen. Elliott would be able to leave it outside to patrol the land, sleep out on the porch, and chase off any predators or thieves that might be lurking while Elliott was in bed. That would be better than suffering through the brutality of waiting for the sun to rise himself.

Elliott didn’t notice his eyes had closed until they snapped open at the sound of sudden rattling in the hen house. He waited a moment, wondering if he imagined it, but soon there was a murmur of cluckings and Elliott got to his feet. He picked up the hat he’d hung on the back of his chair and placed it on top of his head before grabbing the rifle, standing at the very edge of his porch.

Surely they wouldn’t be going for more chickens, would they? When the cows they had marked were out roaming?

Elliott stepped off the stairs and onto the dirt pathway. If it was chickens being targeted tonight, that means there was likely only one of them. He checked the chamber of his gun before heading off, getting onto the grass as soon as he could in order to dampen the sound of his approaching footsteps. By the time he’s at the fence, the clucking had shifted and grew into something louder, the few hens he had left squawking at whatever was in there with them.

And maybe it was because their din was too loud, but Elliott couldn’t hear anything else. Nothing but feathered ruffling and the scrape of chicken feet.

A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck but he crept forward anyway. He wiped the palm of his hand off on his jeans and pushed open the gate, wincing hard when one of the hens in the coop got louder. The rest were a bit hysterical in their noise making, but this one’s panic was visceral. This wasn’t just someone walking through their nests and aggravating them out of sleep - these chickens were scared for their lives.

Elliott crept up to the wired entrance of the shed and peeked around. Small shadows flicked back an forth on the hay-filled floor in a frenzy. Hoarse, creaking noises spilled from their beaks and wings fluttered as they battled each other in their panic to press to the corners of the shed, close to the walls to get away from -

Now, Elliott wasn’t a religious man - which was an odd thing, when one lived in a small town like he did, where the person he bought canned goods from was the pastor’s brother, and the biggest building was the church which was always filled on Sunday. He never went to mass, not even for the holidays, and the Witt Family’s bible had been left in the bedside table’s drawer since he was a boy.

But he didn’t have to crack apart the thin pages of God’s Word to determine that whatever the thing was in front of him was bad.

Especially when it turned, a chicken limp and unmoving in its hands, and stared Elliott down with eyes that burned like indigo flames.

This isn’t a coyote, his mind helpfully informed him just as his mouth spit out, “Oh, fuck.”

The creature stood up fully and despite all its human-like qualities, there was still that electric energy that was just not right, uncanny and out of place. It showed off a human face, but its skin was so white it almost glinted blue when it passed through the moonlight that bled through the shed’s wooden panels.

Which is how Elliott noticed it was moving toward him. He raised the rifle up and pointed it square at the thing’s chest. If froze in its step, still as stone in half a second, but above the crying of his birds Elliott could hear the trill of something moving in its throat.

“Dro - Drop the chicken,” Elliott ordered, the stillness in his limbs compensating for his trembling voice.

To his surprise the creature listened to him. Its trill from before burst from its throat and its frown opened to let out a hiss, pitched low and piercing. The teeth it bared to him had a pink sheen, wet with blood, and its canines ended in vicious points - points Elliott was sure would match with the ones marking his cattle out on the fields.

“Oh, shit, okay - “ Elliott muttered, too panicked to remember that the creature could hear him.

It hunched down suddenly, dropping into a stance that made Elliott think it was going to lunge for him. Before he could really process that information, could even think to fire a shot at it to knock it down, to kill it, the creature spun around and crashed through the other side of the coop. Elliott blinked at the wire it split through like paper then hurried around the house. It was fast, already having leaped over the fence, a black shape that moved without sound, whispering over the grass in one, two seconds before it disappeared into the trees.

“That’s not a fuckin’ coyote,” Elliott said over the thundering of his heartbeat and the screaming of his chickens.

----=----

For a whole entire day, Elliott allowed himself to think that it was over. He let himself think that that was the last he’d see of the thing, that he’d scared it enough to retreat just from pointing a gun at it. Maybe the fear of Elliott actually using it would keep it away, whatever it was.

Truth be told, he didn’t really want to find out what it was. From the look he got out of it from the shadows, it looked human enough. A man as tall as him, dressed to the nines in black and red silks, slim with features Elliott might have tipped a hat at had he not been terrified the time he saw them. Human features. It looked human.

And yet, the bloodless chicken he’d been forced to get rid of proved otherwise. Once he’d been able to move, he’d wandered back in to examine it and found that it was little more than a husk, dried out and useless. It’s carcass was clean, feathers mostly untouched with no red soaked into them. On its breast were two, neat puncture holes.

The next day, one he’d used to catch up on sleep, he started feeling watched.

As he left the stables after shoveling out the floors, a familiar chill walked along his shoulders like icy fingers, eliciting a shiver from him. It lingered for a moment and slowly dissipated when he searched his surroundings, forcing himself to outwardly appear calm when he found nothing.

It would happen again - and often - in the following weeks. When he left the stables after milking, he’d feel it then. When he fed the chickens, when he lead the two horses out onto the pasture, checked on the hogs - someone was watching him. Waiting. And yet, as each night passed and he’d wake up, Elliott would set out to work and find that none of the livestock had been touched. The hens didn’t go missing. The puncture marks on the cows had scabbed over, and no new ones appeared.

Worriedly, Elliott wondered if he were next, that he was the one being stalked - but why wait so long? He lived alone on the Witt farm, and no one had visited him in the time between then and the encounter.

The idea of a peace offering came to him when he had to put one of the roosters down. It was the older one of the three, the one that was always more aggressive and tried to start fights with the others. Apparently, it had to learn the hard way that all fights it started were not always ones it could win. Elliott should have separated it sooner, or maybe had done something, but his mind had been in other places as of late. He’d felt terrible - for the cockerel, for himself. For his family. The only thing they’d left behind was this farm, and he was making a mess of it.

So, out he marched at the first sign of dusk, right to the edge of the trees where he’d seen the creature dart off all those days ago. He planned on calling out to it until it showed, dropping the rooster at its feet and declaring, There, see? I’m doing just fine on ruining everything on my own, so why don’t you just take the damn bird and go?

He didn’t do any such thing. He just stood there for a long moment, listened to the robins in the woods and the huffing of cattle behind him, and stared down at the rooster in his hands. Eventually, the watched feeling came. Elliott was so used to it that the chill hardly even registered. It was just eyes on him, now, no longer threatening or frightening.

For a moment, neither of them did anything. Nothing jumped out to attack him, and Elliott didn’t say a word. He never actually did. Eventually, he dropped the rooster onto the grass and turned back to the house, not even waiting to see if the creature would show itself.

The sun was finally wishing the horizon a farewell, sinking just under the trees as he’s finishing up the last of his rounds. Elliott tested the locks on the doors of the stalls to make sure they wouldn’t swing open and cast a long look at a cow sitting on the other side of one. She stared back at him. The scabs on her shoulders were just about gone, now, and her fur had grown over the little pink marks that’d been left behind. The rest of the cattle’s marks were just about the same. Nothing fresh.

Inside the Witt home, it was dark. There was still washing up he had to do in the big metal basin sat underneath the kitchen’s window. He probably wouldn’t get to until the next morning, so he pointedly kept his gaze away from there. He moved passed the old dining table that hadn’t seen use in years - mostly it was just full of tools he hadn’t moved back into the shed yet - and made his way toward the fireplace. Soon, the cold blue glow of the darkening sky was warmed by the slow starting flame. Elliott poked at it until he was thoroughly bored of watching sticks crumble into ash and was sure it wouldn’t smother itself.

With a heaving sigh he got back to his feet but didn’t go far, falling onto a wooden bench close to the fireplace. There were bigger and more comfortable places to sit, like the large wicker chair right beside him or the stool that had a pillow sewn onto it haphazardly, but Elliott had always sat on the bench. Maybe tomorrow, after he was done the cleaning, he’d move all the extra furniture out into the shed along with the tools on the dining room table. No use in having so many if he wasn’t using it. He didn’t get much company - none at all, really.

Elliott found himself staring at the book left on the seat of the wicker chair and doubted he’d even get around to doing the washing up.

Over the crackle of the fire, something thumped right outside the front door. Elliott straightened, twisted around to look toward the noise, and thought how weird it was to be thinking about never getting any visitors only to have one stop by. Or maybe the word was ironic.

But then he remembered the time and he held his breath to listen. There was no shuffling of someone on his porch and no knocking on his door. If someone rode all the way out to the Witt’s Farm after sundown it’d be for an emergency, so there was no real good reason for the stranger to be quiet.

Slowly, Elliott stood. Avoiding the floorboards that creaked, he crossed the room toward the door and picked up the rifle he’d left there. The silence was deafening and ringing with the dreadful thought of how he might actually be going crazy. Then, the idea of Elliott opening the door and finding nothing at all was almost as terrifying as opening it and revealing the shadow from the hen house. Had he actually heard something? Was there really something in his woods? What if he went outside to the coop and all of the lost chickens would be accounted for? What if the marks on the cows had healed so fast because they’d never been marked in the first place?

Elliott put his hand on the doorknob, sucked in a breath, held it, then twisted it and pulled it open. The door’s creak seemed like a wail in the empty night - because that’s what it was. Empty. No one standing at his stoop, no shadow perched on his railing ready to strike.

Nothing but the rooster he’d left at the trees, untouched and dropped carelessly at his door.

And for reasons he couldn’t explain, Elliott narrowed his eyes down at it and felt angry. Maybe it was the sleep he was losing, the constant worrying, the loneliness - or maybe he actually was losing his mind. Whatever it was, it was enough to have him bend over, snatch up the bird, and stomp down onto the path toward the trees. When he got there, he still said nothing, but that time he didn’t even wait around. Elliott just tossed the bird back onto the grass where he’d left it the first time and turned to storm away, ignoring the petulant feeling that rose at the display.

He made it about four yards before something hit the dirt behind him. He froze without looking back and grit his teeth.

“Alright, you sumbitch.”

Annoyed, he faced the trees again, passing the bird on the road. That chill was back. Instead of stopping him, have him think twice, it only achieved in making the anger thrumming around in his chest burn defiantly brighter.

Two indigo flames held his gaze when Elliott noticed them, dimmer than the last time he saw them. They regarded him with disinterest and that alone had him nearly seething.

“I’m tired of playing this game you’re havin’ with me,” he snapped. The shadow might have raised a brow at him, but with how dark it was Elliott couldn’t be sure. It didn’t say anything, so the question - the one he’d been wondering since that night - burst out of him. “Why haven’t you just killed me yet?”

Now the eyes moved, turning in a way that told Elliott that the creature had tilted its head. But still, the silence. Slowly, it looked down at the rifle Elliott had nearly forgotten about, pointedly, then back up at him. Elliott heard it hit the ground in the next second, which is how he learned that he himself tossed it aside.

Something that was smothered by the heat of the moment whispered to him, You sleep deprived idiot, just what in the hell are you doing?

What he said out loud was, “Do it, then. Nothin’s stopping you, so do it.”

The shadow did nothing; not a sound, not a movement.

Elliott heard his own breathing over the gentle breeze and wondered why it was so slow. He’d seen the speed the creature had moved at and his only protection was too many paces away. If it wasn’t planning on killing him, the anticipation should have been. But he was calm, staring demise dead in its lightning blue eyes, fists clenched at his sides.

The thought of it being incapable of speech occurred to him, but with the way it watched him, Elliott didn’t find it likely. Despite how inhuman they were, there was sentience behind the shadow’s gaze. Maybe too much for something that fed on blood. It looked at Elliott and he felt that it was capable of telling him exactly what it wanted to with a stare alone - all that and more. It was a heavy kind of thing to know. Elliott realized he had a hard time looking away, so when he managed it he didn’t dare look again.

“Just, get - get out of here.” He started making his way back - and didn’t look at the damned rooster again, either. “Leave me alone and terrorize some other poor bastard’s chickens.”

Coward, he thought, but didn’t know who it was directed to.

----=----

The next morning, Elliott woke up to one less crowing and his rifle propped up on the porch railing outside.

Something in the woods still watched him.

----=----

A few days passed until he saw the shadow again. Elliott was leaving the hen house and had thrown a look up at the sky to gauge the time, sighed at the moon, and turned to shut the wired gate behind him. When he turned around, a figure that definitely had not been there before stood in the path in front of him.

He gasped and sent himself back in a fit of shock, back slamming up against the shed. He scowled once he realized what - or, rather, who it was, but that was gone in the next second, too. The shadow’s posture was still one of casual disinterest; hands in pockets, shoulders relaxed, and expression blank if not aloof. But it was different, Elliott was sure. The skin, while always having been pallid, took a different tone, now, one that was qualmish and almost sickly. And the eyes - the eyes hardly even glowed.

It looked more like a ghost than a shadow.

“What’s wrong?” He asked - and why was he even concerned? It hadn’t tried to kill him yet, sure, but it was responsible for taking out almost a quarter of his chickens.

True to a pattern, the creature said nothing, however, it did give a meaningful look into the shed behind Elliott. When its gaze returned, he could see how its throat worked around a swallow.

“Are - “ Elliott looked back at the hen house as if to check to make sure that was what the shadow had looked at. “Are you asking me to - “ He cut himself off again, but pointed into the house.

It narrowed its eyes at the incredulous inflection in Elliott’s voice but did not say no.

The whistling of grass is the only sound for a long moment as a cool night’s breeze moved over the fields, Elliott at a loss for words. As the wind washed over him, chilling him that much further, he could see the creature’s nostrils flare minutely, and this time when its throat moved it was around a rumbling noise. From the base of its chest it traveled up and out as that familiar trill. It filled Elliott with a sense of urgency, one he couldn’t really explain.

He was torn. It was strange to be asked such a thing, but he supposed he should be grateful of the fact that it was asking at all. But how was he even supposed to answer? As far as Elliott knew, none of his chickens survived. He’d never found markings on them, they would just disappear. With the colder seasons approaching, he really couldn’t afford to lose any more of his livestock.

The cows, though, they’d apparently survived a few run-ins with the shadow.

Elliott looked over to the stables and felt shameful the second he did. Was he really considering it? Other than the fast healing punctures on their necks or shoulders, there had been no real changes in their behavior or health. The morning he’d find the marks on them, they’d appear nonplussed. But what if it hurt them? What if the experience was traumatic in a way Elliott couldn’t see?

Then again, could he really afford to deliberate on this? In that moment, with the shadow looking at him expectantly, it seemed to be between Elliott and the cows. Really, the choice was an easy one, but he was still allowed to feel guilty.

“Follow me,” he told the shadow.

As the temperature steadily declined throughout the days, Elliott had started rounding the cows up into the stables more often. It got too cold at night , and he didn’t want to give the cows a chance to catch an illness. It meant waking up earlier to give them more time to graze but it was safer. While he was unlocking the paneled door to the stables Elliott thought that maybe that was the reason he was losing more chickens. It was harder to get through a locked door without raising suspicion than it was kidnapping a few birds and letting the farmer’s blame fall onto coyotes.

The shadow didn’t make a noise but when Elliott turned, it was standing right behind him, nose wrinkled a little at the intense smell of animal and dirt. He didn’t jump that time. He picked up the unlit lantern he’d left behind on the stacked bales of hay, lighting it fast and hung it on the rung in between two of the stall doors. Inside one of them, the dull eyes of a cow shimmered and regarded him blankly. Elliott drug the door open and stepped inside next to her, touching at the glittering wet nose and felt her hot breath huff against his hand in recognition.

“It doesn’t - there’s no - it - it’s not gonna hurt her too much, is it?” Elliott couldn’t help but ask. Now, he expected a nonverbal answer so he looked back to shadow for it, finding more whites in its eyes and the stoic expression looking cheaper. It wasn’t watching him anymore, purely focused on the cow Elliott was petting at nervously.

It stepped closer, into the stall, and Elliott watched as the cow’s head tipped up apprehensively. The huffing of her breathing got a little bit faster and Elliott heard himself shushing her lowly, scratching around the longer scruff by her ears. He couldn’t imagine he was helping too much, but the only thing she did when he saw the shadow disappear around her other side was let out a small grunt of displeasure.

Time passed; the only sound came from his and the cow’s breathing and the brisk wind rattling the wood of the barn. Elliott kept up his attempt at comfort, watching her face intently, and was surprised to find her calm once again. Slowly, he stepped away, gauging her reaction at the movement but didn’t get one.

He moved back into the base of the barn and heaved up one of the metal buckets he’d filled with grain. It was a favor he’d done for himself that night to save himself some time when he woke up to feed them, but he figured that the cow deserved some special treatment. Elliot brought it over to her front and held it right under her nose for her to sniff out, knocking the handle out of her way and hugging it to his stomach due to the weight of it.

The cow’s ears twitched back and forth in contentment, dipping her snout into the grain and eating it by the mouthful. Relief coursed through him like the blood in his veins and Elliott felt himself smiling a little.

“Good girl,” he told her, to which he got very little in the way of a response.

The shadow straightened in a fluid movement, one Elliott watched with rapt attention. Even in just the few short minutes, there was an excruciatingly apparent change in the creature. The intensity of its eyes returned, their brightness amplifying its now fuller features and adding more color to the porcelain-looking skin - it was the most human Elliott had seen him.

“You were starving,” Elliott muttered with a voice awed in his realization. He thought back to the look the shadow had given the cow before and identified it now as a pained and feral sort of hunger. “Why didn’t you just take the damned rooster?”

The creature wiped the cow blood off of wet lips and had the audacity to look at Elliott like he was the disgusting one. Before he could remark on that, prove to the other how backwards that was, the shadow’s mouth opened and for the first time, he spoke. In a voice that was low and smooth, with layers upon layers of something deep and new to Elliott threading through the syllables, he simply stated, “It was dead.”

Elliott sputtered, a little dumbstruck. “So?”

The shadow’s eyes narrowed into a disbelieving glare. “It was dead for a long time.”

“You’re gettin’ partipu - pertil - picky about what blood you’re drinking, now?”

If he were being frank, Elliott wasn’t sure why he was antagonizing the shadow. He’d been merciful so far in not maiming him. And Elliott couldn’t exactly say that if he’d left something out for the hours the rooster had been sitting, he would drink it, either.

But surely drinking blood wasn’t enjoyable in any sense.

Elliott pulled the bucket out from under the cow. Some feed stuck to the wetness of her nose which she cleaned off with a few swipes of her tongue. “I guess we’re done here,” Elliott said to her, but mostly to the shadow.

The shadow that had since disappeared from the stables.

Sighing, Elliott replaced the now three quarters filled bucket with the others as he shook his head. “Guess we are.”

----=----

They weren’t, but Elliott had expected that much.

Every other night, now, when Elliott was finishing his rounds he caught sight of the shadow leaning against the barn doors like it was an arrangement they’d agreed on. He’d finish locking up and meet him there where he’d open the doors and wave the shadow inside, direct him to one of the seven cows, and pretended it wasn’t abnormal. Every farmer had an odd case; a pair of horses that only fed at a specific time of day, cattle that grazed exclusively on the left side of the pasture, a herding dog that befriended and mothered ill lambs.

Elliott’s odd case was a vampire, but it was fine. Every farmer had an odd case. Some odder than others.

Things started to change on the evening Elliott had just left the stables unlocked. One of the pen’s posts had crumbled from age and the fences around it sagged too close to the dirt. It was a reminder that he’d have to put work into replacing them before the winter, or else he’d have a lot more work come spring. Like the dishes in the basin and the extra furniture still in the front of his house, that was a problem for tomorrow’s Elliott. He’d just repair the broken one for now.

He was just testing out the sturdiness of the new post when he noticed that the shadow was standing behind him. By then he was so used to the minor jump scares that he only just barely lost the hammer in his grip. It thumped onto the old, rotten fence post he’d left laying there and landed quietly in the grass.

“Lord - Jesus - Chri - you gotta stop doing that,” he told the shadow, hand over his heart.

Silence from the shadow. He’d gone back to his quiet pledge, not having spoken since their very short conversation in the stables.

Elliott was used to that, too, so shook his head and leaned down to pick up the hammer and the post. He could leave it to dry out on his porch, break it apart further and use it for tinder later. “I left the barn open,” he said when he saw that the shadow was still standing there.

“I know,” the shadow responded. Something flashed in his eyes, probably on account of how fast Elliott snapped up to look at him, not having expected an answer. It was some kind of struggle, Elliott imagined, because his mouth opened a second before he said anything. “Thank you.”

Elliott’s eyes widened. “I - uh. Y-yeah, you’re welcome. It’s fine. It’s - y’know, it’s better than you killing my chickens.”

That flash of something struck again. Elliott wanted to apologize. He genuinely didn’t want to offend the shadow, and he might have actually done it if he didn’t speak before him. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”

And that would have been smart, wouldn’t it? Letting the town know about the blood drinker in their woods. They could have helped Elliott a few dead birds earlier, rounded up enough of them for a search party - if they even believed him in the first place. But that would have involved killing the shadow, or running him off, and Elliott didn’t really enjoy the idea of that. In some kind of morbid way, through all of the heart-pounding meetings and stress-induced nightmares, he kind of liked the company. He’d probably miss it if it were gone.

Besides, the nightmares were really nothing new.

Still, he decided he wasn’t going to tell the other that. He just grinned, leaned up against the freshly repaired fence - very sturdy - and said, “I think I’ve got you handled.”

The shadow’s brow rose and he looked Elliott up and down, then finally back up again. “No,” is all he said.

The smile dropped from Elliott’s face but he didn’t say anything more on that, because, unfortunately, the shadow was being very fair. “Right, well,” he muttered, pushing off the fence. He was ready for bed. “Have a good night, then.”

“Are you Witt?” He was asked after a few paces.

Elliott paused, turned around slowly. “How’d you know about that?”

“I listen,” the shadow stated simply.

Looking around acres of empty land, Elliott wondered, to who? “Yeah, I - well, I’m one of them. Witt’s my last name, so there’s… Well, there’s been a few Witts.”

The other’s head cocked to one side. “Which Witt are you?”

The only one, really. “I’m Elliott.”

The shadow nodded, looking him over once more. “Good night, Elliott.”

All he did was stand there for a moment, blinking, too caught up on how his name sounded in the smooth whisper of the other’s voice. He’d never heard it be said like that before.

Then, finally, his brain caught up.

“Hey, wait,” he called, despite the shadow not having moved an inch. “That’s not very fair, now is it? I don’t get to know your name?”

He wouldn’t exactly say that the shadow was the teasing sort, but it did take numerous weeks to get a decent two-sided conversation out of him. Mostly, Elliott expected the same response from before. Another ‘no’ before he disappeared for a few nights again.

“Tae Joon,” was what he got, though.

Elliott tried it out for himself. “Tae Joon.”

The shadow’s head tilted further.

Elliott smiled, tipped his hat. “You have a good night, Tae Joon.”

He shifted the wooden post around for easier carrying and put his back to the shadow, knowing that if he turned around now he probably would find empty air. It was fine. Elliott knew he’d see him soon.

=====

yyyyeaahh this is what i’ve been putting off prompts for BIG oof :^((((

not sure when i’ll finish the rest of it tbh but here’s this for now i guess

#cryptage #apex legends #crypto #mirage #elliott witt #tae joon park

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omissilem · 3 years

Text

The endless battle with trauma -*Long Post*

Where do I begin?

Last wednesday, I came into work 1 minute late.

I woke up at 3am, sitting up in bed with my stomach aching, and every bone in my body tensed in protest.

"Don't go in!" my body berated me.

From that other place, which I'm sure wasn't my mind, I willed myself towards the shower.

"Do you want to be let down? You don't need this again."

"I don't." Said my mind.

I looked in the mirror. I had started to break out in the recent days, stress induced, no doubt.

"im not going to let this make me ugly."

I washed my face with cold, then warm water and cleanser. For the first time, I placed pimple patches on the eruptions, without a care as to who would see them at work that day.

I get dressed, and sit on my bed for an hour in my brand new black chefs coat. I look good, but feel like paper. A crumpled ball of paper.

"you have 5 minutes to call in without a write up."

I consider it, I push it away. I open up my ipad and scroll through youtube videos, read blogs, check my crypto every couple minutes in between.

"not rich yet, guess i'd better go to work."

30 minutes later, pulling into the driveway of the compound. It is still cool and dark, but the fortress' wall of lights and fence create a harsh day.

"Why didn't I call in?" I groan inwardly.

The gate guard appears, walking towards my driver side window.

"Tell the gate guard that you have a sore throat, then you can turn around!"

He hands me the instant read thermometer, and I scan my nape. It's low, lower than normal. As usual. Darn.

"Have a good day," we tell each other, and I badge into the gate, driving slower than molasses.

"What are you doing here?"

Sitting in my car for about 5 minutes, I fumble to put together my bag, my mask, my hat, my knives. It's hard to breathe, I'm suddenly aware of how shallow my breaths had become. I sit and blow it all out in the car, allowing my mind to settle down. 3 more minutes pass.

I go in.

I step into the ready room, our temporary base for all the food operations. It is a cold, large room, filled wall to wall with dry goods, water, paper goods, and office supplies.

Chef is sitting in his corner, quietly absorbed in his work on his laptop. He briefly looks up, his eyes sharp and fast.

My throat was tight, "Good morning," I croak. My mouth was dry, wondering why I had to drag the sound out.

I punch in my employee number. 5:31 am. Oops.

I usually come in at 4:30, but today, I came at my regular time, knowing I had a meeting at. 1:30 pm.

I gather my thoughts, wondering what I would need for the day.

Feeling the tension in the room, or in my stomach, who knows, but I grab some packages of cups and lids, and shuffle out of the room.

Legs tight, and stomach twisted, I sauntered out to our outdoor kitchens ramp. Brightly painted wooden boards constructed in a lattice nest for our metal container turned into a kitchen.

I walked into the box, croaking in a voice as loud as I can, "Goodmorning David!" My coworker was already on the line, assembling the breakfast boxes.

My head was furious with thoughts, so fast that the words to describe them are a blur. I can only feel them like wind in my head, an inpending storm. The air was cold and kind of wet.

I get to work, pulling out fruit, meat, vegetables.

Sealing up the containers, I slap the tops with the date gun.

Click.

click...click click click click click click click click click click click click...click click click click click click click click click click clickclick...click click click click click click click click click click click CLICK!

It was jammed. It would be. I rip open the gadget. It was empty. I grab the new roll. My hands hurt. I insert the new tape, and for some reason, it's protesting.

10 minutes later, my hands are sticky, the gears on the gun are gummed up with sticker adhesive, and there are tiny white labels all over my hands, the counter, in the guns parts. I felt like an animal caught in a sticky date label net. Grunting and groaning, I use a knife, a spatula, my fingernails, to extract all the jammed up sticker peices all throughout the tool.

All the while, my mind is just a ticking time bomb, my carefully sliced chicken getting warmer by the second, and my coworker pacing back and forth waiting for me to give them to him.

The more time that passes, the hotter my insides get.

"DARNIT!" i exclaim, in resignation. I tell the driver to take the breakfast items, leaving the chicken behind as prisoners of war.

That's how it feels, when you're late, serving food. Like the trenches of war.

Right now, my battles were this cursed date gun, and the relentless gauntlet of emotion telling me to run away screaming from the culinary profession all-together.

It took me 45 minutes to slap 24 labels on cold sliced chicken. It felt like finishing a foot race in last place.

I'm so extra.

"How are you feeling today?" David asks me.

"Dude. I was so set on calling in yesterday. I haven't felt good for days. Somehow this morning, I was able to get up."

"I'm glad you came to work today," he said with genuine smile.

It was the first time I had heard Him say something like that to me. It was so simple.

I needed it.

The day before, I was hit with this sudden idea that I was just DONE with the industry. I caught a glimpse of the managers schedule, they were interviewing people. I assumed them to be my next sous chef to work for.

I wasn't going to go through THAT, again.

I had taken all of my tools and cleared out my station, packing my bag. I had prepared everything enough for that day, so they could serve my food in my absence.

Yet, I came in. There was a silent force underlying the torment of my emotions. This silent energy moved me to keep showing up.

Even if I would be passed up again, I knew deep down I had to take it.

Anyhow, back to work. My whole day went like that. As the hours go by, I got quieter and quieter, ignoring my body and mind struggle. My world was ham sandwich, my future was 10am lunch break, and my race was this cold food menu.

I look up at 9:30, and im reeling. I finished early, despite all the hurdles of that morning.

This entry could be a novel, if I typed out each moment, which was filled with years of thoughts, resentments, of doubts.

Trauma can make the simplest things we should enjoy today, into nightmares of the past.

Chef B walks up to me, his eyes loud, but his voice barely above a whisper. "You good? He asks me in a voice like a kitten's mewl.

I remember taking a quick deep breath and think,

"yeah im okay."

we stand there for a few seconds, wondering what to say next, then go back to whatever we were doing.

I grab a box of the fresh hot lunch and go clock out.

Everyone is sitting in the ready room, and it feels like they are all waiting and watching me. They really aren't, but my mind is watching them, i guess.

I quietly start into an effort to eat.

I take a bite of a ginormous black tiger prawn, coated in an earthy brown Berber spice.

SNAP. SHOCK. PIERCED. Says my palate. The shrimp was just heat and salt, that felt white prickly hot in my mouth, that sent shocks throughout my head, then my throat.

I gag a bit, and everyone for real this time, looks up.

I blink a few times, and croaked to the room,

"Heat. Salt. Saaaaaahhhlt!"

My tongue was prickly, and my throat was threatening me with a tickle of an impending allergic reaction.

"it's only red pepper flakes," the other cook replies.

"its probably me, im sensitive right now."

This was true, I knew I was in fight or flight mode, for much too long. My body couldn't take any more stimulus.

Lunch passed, barely able to take a couple spoonfuls of squash and sweet potato mash.

I return to the kitchen, preparing for the next day. I tell the dishwasher I would be staying till 1:20, so that he would have to wait for me to finish. I finish out my day, slicing melons, cleaning the shelves, Texting the chef with menu ideas, and what vegetables to order.

I remember using the final ten minutes in the employee restroom, washing my face, and staring myself in the mirror.

I was ready to walk into to this meeting, and let them tell me I would not be moving forward. I was ready to say, "thank you for everything, here is my resignation."

I was too tired to cry, I was tense and worn, but didn't have the energy to react anymore. I would just show up.

End part 1

#personal #cheflife #failure #movingforward #trauma #recovery

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itscryptovision-blog · 6 years

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ICOs and is crypto legal?

Hello everyone, welcome to this week’s blog post about cryptocurrency. This week you will be entertained with insight on ICOs as well as the legality of cryptocurrency as a whole. Cryptocurrency can be looked at as a speculation. No one can be 100 percent positive about cryptocurrency prices going up or down. That being said, those that do invest in crypto have the opportunity to have great return on investment plus more. Then again, they also have the chance that all of their investments could completely disappear. That ladies and gentlemen, is the wonderful world of crypto.

If you are a computer scientist with a vision, blockchain related or not, it is very easy to fundraise via a digital token. All you really need is a great vision and people that support it. To begin your crowdfunding efforts, you design a token economy for your project and let people invest at various stages of an ICO. ICO is a newer term and stands for Initial Coin Offering, basically entailing the same thing as an IPO, only investors are awarded an amount of tokens, rather. The risk-reward comes into play for investors in the form of how early their investment is into a project timeline. If one invests early, they risk the project failing and all they are left with is a “wallet” full of useless computer code. On the other hand, if one invest in the earliest stages of an initial coin offering, they will receive a ridiculous stake in the project. When a team of developers and computer scientists have done a good job in regards to their ICO, exchanges will rush to add them to their markets so crypto users can begin trading this new coin. This enables investors to start trading their share in this project for bitcoin, ethereum, and sometimes other trading pairs; oftentimes, a new listing is the first step in continued project funding, otherwise the project is left with finding business partners over the counter. Last fall ICOs were hotter than ever. Authors and journalists were calling this “the digital gold rush”, and with such a title came enormous interest. People were naively throwing in their money with hopes of getting rich very quick, and it opened up ridiculous opportunity for scam artists. If you weren’t buying during the wrong market cycle, you were investing in projects that had no intentions of ever releasing a real product. It is this aspect of the cryptosphere that brings out talk of regulation, along with other undesirable outcomes. With that disclaimer out of the way, there wouldn’t be this much fuss over the topic if there weren’t amazing products and incredible returns available so always be sure to do your own research and always be skeptical.

Given the dangers associated with investing in an unregulated market, one must be aware of ways to manage risk. The single easiest way to manage risk is to not invest. If you cannot resist or think you’ve got what it takes, then you need to familiarize yourself a great deal with many terms and insights. One of the most obvious red flags in this market is the promise of great, or any, returns. No project can guarantee any amount of return on your investment, so if they are, odds are they just want it to sound appealing. As a rule of thumb, if it seems too good to be true it probably is. Another red flag is projects offering bonuses for referring new users. If there is a bounty for new users, it is a sign that they are incapable of marketing any real product. A question to ask yourself is, “why can’t their product alone incentivise users to invest?” What happens in these scams is new user’s investments are what are used to pay out current existing users, and they continue this behavior until someone can not be paid for the payouts they deserve. The developers will then shut down the platform and make away with a lot of bitcoin or ethereum investments, and since this market is mostly unregulated, no one chases them down to return your investment. As one final method for safe investing, stay away from ICOs entirely. Only invest in projects that already have a working product and existing use cases. Some projects are already being used by many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of users; this is an excellent sign. There are people that will try to steal your funds from you, so be mindful of the above and manage that risk for your own benefit.

It is important to remember that this market is mostly decentralized and unregulated. What happens in it is between only involved parties, but this does not prevent government associations from doing what they can to keep you safe/keep you from investing, depending on which side of that argument you align with. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, to legally invest in ICOs you need to be an accredited investor. Anyone can become an accredited investor, but many people do not wish you become accredited investors and treat this as a scare tactic. I cannot make that decision for you. An accredited investor is someone that has a net worth of at least one million dollars, excluding their residence. Let me tell you something interesting; about 90 percent of the investors in ICOs are not accredited investors. They are everything but accredited investors, actually. This 90 percent consists of young teenagers, college students, middle-aged financial analysts, and the rest being of a miscellaneous group. They are all interested in one of the two reasons; the project itself, how it works, how it will better the online community, how it can help something be more efficient, etc., or the other reason is to try and get rich quick. These ICOs offer the starting shares at usually 10 cents to one dollar. The reason people invest in these projects is because of the return on investment, or ROI, they have speculated to get back once it has hit the market. Many of these projects end with 10 times on your investment, right away. Think about it, who wouldn’t want to invest say 100 dollars and get 1000 dollars in return? It’s a no brainer! The one thing that a large amount of people did not know early on in the ICO scene, is that there are people who set up ICOs just to scam as many people out of as much bitcoin as soon as possible, which is mentioned earlier. One other form of regulation that US investors need to be aware of is that the tax man wants his share of your profits. The amount taxed on these profits is a ridiculous sum, and people have already realized means to avoid this. You are not technically securing any profit until you cash out for fiat currency. If you do not cash out on your investments, you will not be taxed, and bitcoin maximalists believe it will be the currency of the future, so they have no problem with not securing profits on paper. Another interesting fact that has been brought to light is that less than four percent of investors actually paid any amount of taxes on crypto gains. They are not scared to get taxed, because if they have done their due diligence, they can make sure they are never to be located. If you doubt that this technology can remain completely anonymous, then you do not understand the nature of the coding technology. Transactions on a blockchain are completely dismantled and will not exist until all involved parties signal they are present, in layman's terms. This of course requires extreme caution, so it is not suggested that anyone gets a wild hair and becomes a total anarchist. Still though, it is exciting to see existing powers try and regulate it. Be careful and due your due diligence.

There are many different thoughts on cryptocurrency whether cryptocurrencies should be legal or illegal, and discussion of regulation goes beyond authoritative powers. Some crypto enthusiasts will forever stand by the idea that some form of regulation needs to be maintained in this market, and without it, mass adoption can never ocurre. I don’t see there being a single solution to this discussion, and even if there was one agreeable solution, as long as there is someone with coding capabilities, they can construct their own decentralized blockchain. What coins are used for obviously becomes a highly discussed part of this argument. The anonymity allows users to purchase undesirable services from interesting places on the web, and this frightens a lot of people. People worried about this would probably be ones arguing for some method of market regulation. Other users see regulation as a direct threat to the beauty of cryptocurrency. It seems to be glanced at from a distance due to some being unsure about how legal the product a user buys, sells, or trades actually is. In fact, it does matter if you made or lost money on crypto. The IRS has recently, within the last six months, looked further into many of people using crypto to evade taxes or launder money.. In the year of 2017, Bitcoin went from $800 to $19,000. Think of those who had a few, or even a hundred Bitcoins. The gains on those investments are going to need to be noted by the IRS, otherwise you can be charged heavily on your capital gains. It is very smart to file your taxes on your investments to cover your back. I suggest keeping you back covered so you don’t get burned.

Whether you’re a risk taker or not, initial coin offerings are definitely something to look into, but you need to do you research before ever investing. This is the only way you can feel like you are investing rather than gambling, but hey, even gamblers can win big. Isn’t that part of the excitement? There’s more than just 15 minutes of research to do on a coin before investing in their ICO, so make sure you are reading white papers, consulting community threads, and are aware of the red flags mentioned previously. Also, never invest more than you can afford to lose. This is not only with crypto investments, but with any and all investments. I hope you are able to learn something useful in this write-up and feel inspired to get your toes wet. Stay safe, smart, and as always, do your own research.

#mkt400uwl #cryptocurrency #crypto

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bayyfirmansyah513 · 3 years

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XIRCUS

XIRCUS First Multi-chain Gamified DAO & NFT Market Building Platform

As the art world begins to open up and go digital at the same time, art technology organization Jumbish has announced the launch of an exclusive art-based NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace that platforms both up-and-coming and established artists and creators, and connects them with collectors in the marketplace. blockchain-powered online, he said.

NFTs are digital assets that have been around for years, but the past few months have given new life to cryptocurrencies and crypto-arts.

WHAT IS CIRCUS ? As introduced above, Xircus is a platform where anyone can create and launch their own new NFT marketplace. With smart circus technology and the application of modern technology, every event and occurrence becomes a digital experience. Xircus will create a completely unique and new marketplace, Participants there can experience an almost realistic congress or trade show firsthand. In addition, people can experience lectures, seminars, special exhibitions, cooking, live music and many other formats in the digital space. From there, gather more knowledge and experience for yourself. For the organizers, a digital event will be created, which is a secure plan and gives participants freedom and flexibility.

Xircus is the first DAO platform that allows users to create and deploy custom NFT marketplaces in the world of multi-chain gambling. Xircus users can create and launch a personalized NFT trading platform for free. All this process is done through a few simple steps and saves everyone time and effort. Artists, content creators and brands will be empowered by Xircus to create a personalized NFT marketplace, which Xircus sees as a multi-dimensional gateway to the irreplaceable world of digital assets. as a service model (DSaaS), our Decentralized Software enables anyone to access the platform in a simple, secure, time-saving and low-cost way. That way you can focus on growing your NFT market.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Xircus is everywhere in the world and you can update its information from anywhere. The reason it is growing so fast is because it has a solid technical infrastructure, digital ticketing and stable internet browsing. This is everything we need in the crypto market. In addition, Xircus has a simple configuration, Surface platform has detailed and specific instructions that help visitors intuitively through all functions. so that even new users who are not experienced in this field can easily find their way. WHITE PAPER

Xircus is a cheaper platform in terms of cost and technology. If for some other project we have to spend a lot of money to develop the NFT market which is ultimately unreliable, we might be deceived. However, for Xircus, users can directly create and develop an NFT marketplace for free. Moreover, with global reach Users can develop local NFT market. Xircus will help them promote to other markets. One of the benefits that Xircus offers is its own user ecosystem. each can develop its own NFT market and can manage, develop and execute its own trades. Through API development, Xircus has authenticated which allows users to login anonymously using a unique nonce. In addition, Xircus can handle all customer needs in a short time because it implements modern technology and a unique management system.\

Xircus Features

Xircus is a platform that allows users without writing a single code to implement their own custom NFT marketplace. Users can launch NFT market instantly with just a few simple steps without any coding or experience. But that's just one of the features of Xircus, Here are some other features of Xircus.

Benefits If you join xircus

ALIVE Good events ensure gatherings and bring people together. We can also do this at digital live events. The technical possibilities of the xircus ensure a lively connection between the audience and the actors.

INTERACTIVE We focus on people and their exchange with each other, also in the digital world. All participants are also contributors. For example, speakers have the opportunity to bring interested parties from the audience onto the digital stage and speak to them.

INTUITIVE Xircus is intuitive to use and very easy. It works without instructions and without waiting.

RELIABLE PLANNING Every event requires financial and human resource costs. Xircus uses the right tools and formats required for each event and makes the event 100 percent reliable for the organizers.

PERSONAL The bigger the digital event, the more confusing it gets. Xircus provides orientation and, with the help of intelligent matchmaking, leads each participant to the content and people they are interested in.

FREE At xircus, all visitors can move freely through the platform and decide for themselves which content they want to see.

The first feature of Xircus is Low Cost Technology. Users can directly develop the NFT market for free with the smart contracts and technology infrastructure provided by Xircus. Besides, No need to spend extra money to develop NFT market, users can develop local NFT market with global reach. Xircus will help users promote to other markets.

ROADMAP

Smart contract Q1 2021

Wallet integration

DeFi Features

Integrated stablecoins

DAO governance

Decentralized market

Functional prototype

Q2 2021 Xircus DeFi token

XMT token for market

Cross-chain integration

Market developer

Stats spreader

ERC721 collection spreader

ERC1155 collection spreader

Subdomain terms via xircusnft.com

Core platform complete

Testnet launch

Launch pad creation

Q3 2021 — Phase 1.0 ( public soft launch ) Xircus 1.0 (Binance Smart Chain) First user orientation 3 token sale stages Mainnet launch Music features for music-related markets Features for influencers Initial Dex Offering (IDO) Graphics protocol integration for faster graph queries 500 ringmaster and dApps orientation Completed EVM compatible blockchain integration Completed custom collection spreaders and contracts Expandable Music UI and Sports UI Themes

Q4 2021-2.0 Wasm contract creation stage for Solana, Flow and Near Xircus mobile app (iOS + Android) releases V1 with crypto wallet and AR features Xircus NFT TV App Onboarding 2500 RingMasters Cross-promotes market More market themes

Conclusion

Xircus comes as a platform that allows users to deploy the NFT costume marketplace without the need to write any code or any experience, users can deploy their own marketplace in just a few steps. In this way, Xircus can empower artists, influencers, content creators, collectors and brands who want to use their own NFT marketplace and help them reclaim their right to fully monetize their content without any third party fees.

For more information, please follow the link below.

Website: https://www.xircus.com/ Github: https://github.com/xircusteam Twitter: https://twitter.com/xircusnft Telegram Group: https://t.me/xircusnft instagram: https : //www.instagram.com/xircusnft Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xircusnft Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCljy1Y7cl748M2fc2bUiFMg

Username:TWIXXER

Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2579938

#xircusnft #nft #BSC #BinanceSmartChain #Binance #PancakeSwap #DeFi #Bitcoin #cryptocurrency #blockchain

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elenarcrypto · 3 years

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The Effects Of With And Without Crypto PR

Most crypto and blockchain startups often have difficulties dealing with PR. This is not new. This is not new. FT columnist Jemima Kelly recently unveiled all that a particular company must do to promote its token. The company was established in Ukraine. ASKfm decided to launch their crowd sales by placing 500,000 of their tokens at the summit of Mount Everest "for those who are brave enough to go to the mountains," according to the company's official statement.

No one was foolish enough to take that risk, thankfully, and in due time, but it appears that wasn't the objective in the first place. The Ukrainian corporation deployed a team to the world's highest peak to position a token cache, according to the inquiry. However, their public relations plans were not as good as the industry might say.

The team encountered bad weather when descending after positioning the tokens. The expedition became stranded at 7,000 meters, with no means of communication and no oxygen. The squad had to be rescued by local air rescue on the second day, but the worst was yet to come. One of their guides had vanished, and it was discovered later that day. Local officials later confirmed his death, turning a botched crypto scam into something far more mysterious than anyone could have imagined.

The actions that culminated in the death of a man did not appear to be enough to induce the Ukrainian company to run and hide beneath a rock. “ASKfm kicks off a new stunt —this time without killing a guide,” the company wrote to gain attention. However, ASKfm isn't alone in its efforts to gain media attention.

It's an unexpected consequence of the prohibition on crypto and blockchain advertisements, or the latter's capacity to go beyond today's advertising rules. However, to attract opportunities, capital, leads, and viewers, blockchain and crypto startups and ventures often do the unthinkable. This is supported by the following cringe-worthy ventures that the industry is now trying to forget.

Kim and Dennis Rodman

Dennis Rodman, a former NBA star, was once paid by Potcoin to travel to North Korea and serve as an unofficial observer during the dictator's summit with Donald Trump.

Mao Has Returned!

An actor portraying Mao Zedong, China's most admired and prominent communist leader, appeared at a blockchain conference in China. The usage of photos of former and current Chinese leaders in national broadcasts and advertising is illegal under Chinese law, which is why the incident provoked significant criticism on social media. Making people mad isn't the most effective way to get them to use your goods.

You can see me now (and then you can't)

Savedroid's official website and social media accounts were recently deactivated, and their website was replaced with a South Park meme. What is the goal? To raise awareness about the risks and hazards of cryptocurrency scams. Investors were not amused in the least.

How to take action?

It's simply a sample of PR for blockchain doing wrong, as examples mentioned above. Of course, the fact that both businesses suffer the most common difficulty that blockchain and crypto startups encounter when attempting to gain media attention is a major one. But more to it. But more to it.

All of this is about clarity and strategic thinking when it comes to doing worthwhile and scalable Blockchain PR. You can help with a renewed focus on a PR strategy. So how can crypto businesses still get good news in such uncertainty and reach new people?

Focus on the fundamentals

As a crypto startup, you must be able to share information about your venture with the rest of the planet. We understand. You want to make the front pages of major newspapers no matter what, just as all of your predecessors did; however, this is not a good strategy. To begin, you must understand what is driving all of the other organisations' PR accomplishments, which requires going back to basics.

Despite the fact that crypto and blockchain firms confront unique challenges, many of today's public relations and marketing best practises still apply: is your website interesting and user-friendly? Is your brand in line with the message you're trying to get across? Are you able to communicate your mission and vision to people who aren't in these industries? Have you determined who your target market is?

You must have a thorough understanding of your business, sector, and target market. The ideal crypto PR strategy will devote the majority of its efforts to establishing your voice and brand. You can also take the help of a Crypto PR Agency who does all the PR work for you.

Build Your Content

It's difficult to be a new company in a relatively new industry, especially when the media is still grappling with the concept.

Write a white paper as one of the first things you can do to improve the content on your website. This should address all of the fundamentals, including prices, contracts, and legal difficulties, as well as provide the concrete framework for your abstract goal and vision—how you want to make your impact on the crypto business.

Avoid using jargon in the material and instead, aim to describe complicated processes straightforwardly. Clarity is crucial once again. You will retain integrity by appealing to both savvy and novice viewers in this manner.

Your content will undoubtedly aid you in reaching out to journalists, influencers, bloggers, and publications. Don't forget that they're all searching for experts who can speak authoritatively about cryptocurrencies

Media Relations

Contacting the media is the perfect way to support your ICO or crypto startup. Examine how other firms have gained awareness through thought leadership blogs, guest posts or articles, websites, press releases, and other methods. Getting the attention of the media is an art, which is why you must know exactly how to make your company and proposals beneficial and persuasive. To build the proper relations with the media, you can even hire the Fintech ad, who will do all the groundwork for you.

So, before you start emailing every major publication you come across telling them how great your startup is and why they should contact you, take a step back and review our Pitching To Journalists Toolkit, which will walk you through exactly what kind of email you need to send to get a busy journalist's attention.

A Final Thought

Even with the digital ad prohibition in place, attending events, conferences, and networking activities can help your blockchain and crypto company gain exposure and media coverage. You'll have exclusive access to those making headlines in the crypto community, as well as investors.

#fintechads #cryptopragency

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jackcliu · 3 years

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On tokens, markets, and a path to a real-time economy

Two years ago on March 1, 2019, I posted a Letter to my future self to the Bitcoin blockchain. This is the story of that letter, one where I didn’t write a word, and how two years later, the dream is still alive. There is an actual path with tokens and markets to make utopia a reality, and my case for what that might look like.   

About a month prior to March 1, 2019, I had privately begun telling my close friends, colleagues, and family that I was going to be making a significant career and life change and dedicate the next chapter of my career towards building exclusively for the Bitcoin SV blockchain. You can guess the confused looks and concerns people had about what it was I was doing. Did I lose my mind? To be fair, I still get those messages today. I knew what I had envisioned when I first read the white paper back in 2013 and somewhere along that journey, the crypto industry had taken a path that veered dramatically from the one I had imagined. With Bitcoin having course corrected twice already via hard forks, I wanted and needed a guiding compass - a North Star. That’s when I had the idea to write a letter to my future self.

I confided in one of my best friends, Jackie to help me write it. It was a busy month for me, my mind was all over the place and I needed help. Over two afternoons, I shared with Jackie what I wanted to say, what was the possible world that I imagined. To her I must have been repeating myself since she and many of my friends had heard this for a decade. The future would bring Proof of Work from a term to describe a computer science thing to one that would describe the workings of the entire global economy and drive a seismic shift in how value was created and how we humans would interact and cooperate with one another. I wanted her to include a thank you to some people who helped me along the way - titans of the industry whom I was fortunate to cross paths and work with. Jesse Powell, gave me my first job at Kraken. CZ hired me to OKCoin in 2014. Star believed in me and gave me so many growth opportunities. At Circle, I worked with my long time friend Dan, who would go on to create CMS. A few days later, Jackie sent me a draft. I was pretty shocked at first, thinking hey this doesn’t even say Bitcoin in it. Where are all the names I wanted to include. Then I read it another time and when she asked if I wanted any changes or if the approach was right, I said, “Let’s not change a single word”. It was different, it was exceptional, to me it was perfect. I sent the letter internally as part of my Circle resignation email, flew off to San Antonio with my parents to watch the retirement ceremony of my favourite basketball player Manu Ginobili, and then a month later on April Fools Day, RelayX was launched.

Having this Letter out there has served me well. Nobody could have expected the course of events of the past two years both within BitCoin, and the world at large. Politics, COVID-19, money-printing, delistings, court cases, you name it. Without it as an anchor, I might have lost sight of the bigger picture. If you would have asked me then what BitCoin would look like today, I would have predicted a 100x rosier picture than the current situation. Despite most of the boom in the cryptocurrency industry having not occurred on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, the rapid adoption of blockchain and digital currencies from NFTs to DeFi, to institutions putting BTC on the balance sheet shows the underlying movement is in full force. Just this week, I watched sharpshooter JJ Redick utter the words “non fungible token, and blockchain technology” on his podcast talking about NBA Topshot. That’s incredible.

In the letter are the words - “Your world will be frictionless and marked by truth, freedom and fairness. Your world will truly be one that is defined by human imagination and honest work.”

I am making the case for tokens as the critical solution to a real-time economy. I want to break the spell of the narrow definition of tokens that has bounded the Bitcoin SV ecosystem. For much of the past two years, there appears to be two camps in BSV when it comes to tokens. The dominant one being we want only regulated tokens, security tokens, tokens backed by real assets, with real utility, that real businesses and enterprises can use to make their businesses more efficient. The other, perhaps out of jealousy for what’s going on in other blockchains being let’s just port those Ethereum ERC20’s over and let it run wild for it might pump the BSV price! Funny thing is neither has happened as developers are busy debating whether tokens should be on layer 0 or layer 1 or layer 100 but that’s a topic for another day. Both views are myopic.   

Tokens are going to be a much bigger deal on BitCoin than anyone might imagine.   How many websites are there on the internet? I looked it up recently and the answer is 1.7Bn. How many token contracts are there on the Ethereum chain? The answer is 350,000.   

Websites are kind of hard to set up - you have to purchase a domain name, at least use a website template creator, and there isn’t that much use for getting one for the average person. Not when you can have an Instagram page, a Facebook account, a Twitter handle, a Medium blog without having your own site. Yet there are 1.7Bn of them! Ethereum tokens are prohibitively expensive mining fee wise to generate. Out of interest, I asked one of the devs who minted the original USDC contract during my days at Circle to find the transaction. It cost 0.44 ETH. At today’s prices that’s well over $500 to create a token. Yet there are 350,000 contracts!  

I would wager there will be over 100Bn unique tokens on BitCoin and I’d guess higher but I don’t want to be outside the bounds of the very Overton window I’m creating.

It takes a few seconds to issue a token on BitCoin and at current mining fees, less than a tenth of a cent to issue. If I’m a store owner, I might issue a different gift card a week for the various deals I have going on. If I’m an artist, a different NFT for each piece of artwork. Neither the store owner nor the artist needs more than one website and you start to see the math.

If reading this, you still think tokens are going to be contained to some narrow definition of ‘security’ tokens, or NASDAQ like tokens, or fiat currency tokens, realise it’s like saying the internet will only have The New York Times or CNN or some licensed officially approved site. It’s ok if not every account on Instagram is world class photography. Not every Twitter account is going to be insightful (that’s clear) and that’s ok. In a world of 100Bn unique tokens, You bet there’s going to be a great deal of useless ones and a pretty large number of scams. Just like there are websites that are phishing for your passwords, websites with illegal content, and websites with viruses in them. Over time, services emerged to protect you by blocking, or warning you about potentially dangerous websites.

What’s the bigger picture and what do tokens have to do with a real-time economy? I’ve made the case for there being a ton of tokens. Does that mean it’s just going to be a Coinmarketcap with a lot more pages? An exchange with a lot more trading pairs? No, a lot more exciting than that.

A world with 100Bn tokens means every single asset, service, good, company, project, video, post and many more abstract things than one can imagine is going to have a dynamic, live price. It’s not about the tokens, it’s about the markets. Today, you visit a restaurant and you check Yelp to see if has a good review. BSV entrepreneurs are making some new review site but with reviews posted on the blockchain thinking this is the problem that needs solving. “Immutable reviews”. Much more valuable than a review or immutable review however is if this particular restaurant’s loyalty token is trading at a premium to the other one next door. There’s actually money on the line. Then after eating, instead of being a foodie with a blog and an Instagram to hype up such restaurant, if you’ve got that talent for knowing what’s going to be the next hot restaurant, you can just buy on the open market more of the restaurant’s tokens. Yes, a local foodie just became an crypto trader. Now you profit when you promote the restaurant on your blog. The chef who started that restaurant instead of using Groupon to attract an initial set of customers who have no loyalty to you, can instead issue 10,000 tokens, where each dish costs 100 tokens. Pretty soon if your food is delicious, those token prices are going to jump. Think Global, Live Local is not just going to do good, it’s going to now make you rich.  

 I grew up in a lower middle class first generation immigrant family. I remember being a teenager in those years where oil prices were very volatile as the world approached the idea of “Peak Oil”. We would sometimes drive by a gas station one day where prices were a few cents cheaper than the day before, and even though the tank was half full, we filled up. Other days, the warning light would be on, but we held off for another day to fill up the tank in hopes prices would come down. Is this speculation on oil prices bad? Another fun memory I had was going grocery shopping with my folks and my favourite cookies were the Chip Ahoy Crunchy chocolate. Eating those with milk is probably half the reason for my height. Once in a while they would be on sale but next to them were the No-Name brand versions of the same cookies. Chip Ahoys were definitely better but were they $2/100grams better? No. We would calculate every time to decide which we would buy. Is this speculation on cookie price bad? How come other goods and services in the economy didn’t fluctuate in price? That’s what’s always fascinated me. I knew they would if they could. With Bitcoin, it was possible.

Tokens on Bitcoin with the perpetual scaling design of Bitcoin where it isn’t the holder that’s rewarded (Proof of Stake) but rather those contributing to scaling the network (Proof of Work) will lead to the formation of markets where markets were too inefficient to exist - unlocking trillions of value in the process.   

A fully tokenised economy makes everything efficient, fair, honest, and real-time. I don’t mean efficient like fast transactions or cheap mining fees. It’s the economy that will be efficient. You won’t need to be a big grocery chain or a big oil company or big tech company with financial analysts, and big data and machine learning folks in order to know what to set the price of a Chips Ahoy or a Gallon of oil or surge pricing on a taxi ride. It’ll be orders of magnitudes better than that and for every person on earth because it’s all going to be open, issuable, transferable, tradeable. You won’t be checking page 978,950 of Coinmarketcap. You won’t be scrolling to AHOY/USDT on an exchange. I predict all of this will happen without you realising that it did and all our lives will improve as a result.

For those who immediately think of the regulatory ramifications of this, I’ve thought the same. In 2015, while leading OKCoin, I led our initiative to become the first international benefactors of Coin Center - the industry body working with regulators and governments. I am a minority seed round investor in Chainalysis which looks for criminal activity onchain. I look forward to working with all those who would like to embrace innovation while having an eye on ensuring an orderly, legal transition to this future.

I could not be more excited to support the emerging token projects on BitCoin, through building products, investment, advice, or even in spirit.   Bitcoin is plumbing - just plumbing where billions of trades and speculation down to the satoshi will be happening every second.

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airdropsandcryptonews · 4 years

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The cryptocurrency sector is overflowing with dead projects

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The cryptocurrency sector is overflowing with dead projects

In 2017, when everything concerned with cryptocurrency and blockchain still looked fresh and interesting, it seemed that there would be no day without a new “revolutionary” project or idea. Decentralized financial system, decentralized torrent tracker, decentralized office documentation system. Decentralized, decentralized, decentralized.

The overuse of terms like “transparent,” “distributed” and “blockchain-based” soon made most press papers look generic. The closer we got to the peak of the Bitcoin price at the end of 2017, the more absurd the names of new projects became: “Ethereum-based payment system for slaughterhouse industry workers,” “decentralized blockchain-based dwarf horse breeding platform,” “peer-to-peer personal banking service for divorced blind people,” and so on.

Who would ever need any of that, one might ask. Well, in many cases, nobody. Of the several thousand cryptocurrencies launched since the spread of blockchain technology, only about 30 are currently of any investment interest.

Following cryptocurrencies, many crypto exchanges launched on the wave of blockchain popularity are dying — they just have nothing to trade anymore. The situation is especially visible on review platforms, which store cards of hundreds of closed projects, often together with angry user reviews.

Let’s take a look at a few projects and analyze the reasons for their failure.

Telegram Open Network, or TON

In late 2017 to early 2018, it was first reported that Telegram was planning to launch its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency.

Also known as Grams, the TON coins were intended to be based on Telegram Open Network, with the TON blockchain at the core of the platform. In the project white paper, the developers presented this future coin as a potential standard cryptocurrency that could be used for the regular exchange of value in daily life.

It was stated that while Bitcoin (BTC) was considered “digital gold” and Ethereum was a platform for token crowd sales, this new TON cryptocurrency would be a substitute for traditional money and traditional payment systems such as Visa and Mastercard. According to the white paper, other cryptocurrencies lacked the qualities required to attract a mass consumer. In its turn, Telegram would be able to implement a system eligible for mass use, given its expertise in encrypted distributed data storage, experience in creating user-friendly interfaces, and an enormous user base.

While the company did have a point in part of its claims, to me all of it looked like a huge PR campaign. Why should Telegram implement this new financial system and not some corporation with experience in the financial services industry? How would it be able to distinguish this new currency from other, similar products? How would it be any better than traditional financial systems being implemented by a large centralized company?

No answers were given. However, the Telegram initial coin offering, launched in 2018, was a huge success. The company was able to raise $1.7 billion from investor funds in two private token sale rounds, and that was really promising.

Related: Exclusive: New report reveals details of Telegram’s TON blockchain

But it didn’t end well. On May 12, 2020, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram would officially terminate its involvement with the project after a long legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Surely, the company didn’t have the legal resources necessary for implementing such an ambitious idea. Most likely, technical difficulties and strong competition on the market also played a role.

Related: SEC vs. Telegram: Part 1 — Key takeaways for now

For me, this case epitomizes the whole cryptocurrency hysteria of 2018 — a company that gets involved in an enterprise for which it is not ready, either legally or technologically, without a clear positioning of the product. The end result is failure.

Petchains

Petchains was presented as the future global information management system and trading platform for the pet market. According to its press papers, the system would allow its users to maintain and keep data of the animals living in homes and shelters. The presented project goal was to create a community of pet owners, experts, professionals, institutions, service providers and volunteers. The system was intended to be developed using blockchain and big data technologies as usual. The initial funding was going to be gathered through the process of an initial coin offering.

It’s a good question if the world really needs a blockchain-based information and trading platform for the pet market. I wouldn’t say there are many problems with over-centralization there. Pet shops are usually chosen by customers after analyzing brand reputation and online presence.

Some problems that customers on this market may face include unreliable information about the acquired animal’s health or previous owners. However, these difficulties comprise not a technical, but a legal problem that is unlikely to be solved using blockchain technology.

Moreover, since animal welfare laws vary between different countries, creating a unified international platform in this field is a legally challenging task, hardly suitable for a small technological startup.

The Petchain project team consisted mainly of no-names who had no proven experience in any serious projects. It was not even possible to say for sure whether these were real people — some of the project advisors turned out to have been presented with fake photos.

Despite some marketing efforts, no serious funding was attracted to the project. At the moment, the official website of the project is inactive and its social media accounts haven’t been updated for more than a year. The link that used to lead to the project’s white paper now contains a text describing in general terms the reasons for failures in the cryptocurrency industry.

Wiki token

One more dead project with an incoherent, not thought-through idea at the base of it.

Wiki token (WIKI) was an Ethereum-based, ERC-20 compatible token designed to be used as a means of payment at the so-called Crypto University. This future platform, built around the Bitcoin Wiki project, was described as a totally independent, decentralized, censorship-free educational system.

The learning courses for Crypto University were meant to be created by members of the project community. For writing articles and creating courses, these members would get the previously mentioned ERC-20 Wiki tokens. These tokens would be listed on various crypto exchanges and could be spent on other Crypto University courses.

I first noticed this project in 2018, and it didn’t make much sense right from the beginning. First of all, what kind of secret knowledge is there in the cryptocurrency industry that it should be distributed using token-based payment systems? How would it compete with other content, available for free?

Theoretically, it’s possible to create a platform similar to Coursera based on blockchain. Crypto University, like Coursera, could become a platform that brings together creators and consumers of educational materials. But here, some difficulties arise.

The value of an educational product is usually based on the reputation of its creators. Most of the courses at Coursera are university education programs created by well-known, highly reputable institutions. These courses include interaction with a teacher, who is also a well-known education professional. Upon completion of a course, students usually receive certificates recognized by companies and educational institutions. All these factors add up to the value of the course, and it’s thanks to them that people are willing to pay for it.

In its turn, the Wiki token project could hardly offer any of the above. No collaboration with large institutions or renowned educators. Moreover, the highly specialized area of expertise (cryptocurrency and blockchain) chosen did not imply the presence of educational professionals who could potentially create valuable educational content. Why would it be any better than free YouTube videos or easily searchable internet articles?

What we see here is just another technical embodiment of a dubious business idea. Having neither a well-thought-out concept nor a product, the team rushed to implement it using fashionable technology. The result is a technical wrapper with no content and no interest outside of blockchain hysteria.

As of October 2020, the project’s website is no longer available and its social media accounts have been dead for a couple of years.

Conclusions

The projects listed above did not in fact offer anything except technical execution that was fashionable at the time. Hastily launched on the wave of blockchain popularity, with no market or audience research, they were unable to offer any meaningful value to a potential customer.

One of the key marketing rules: Sell the problem to be solved, not the product you offer. Product developers should always think about consumer needs first. Otherwise, they risk ending up in the same way as the developers of the projects mentioned above — creating only product packaging that has no intrinsic value.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bert Kozma is a writer and an associate editor at Cryptogeek.info. Previously a sales and marketing expert, he has been an author covering cryptocurrency and financial markets for the last decade. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from Saimaa University of Applied Sciences.

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greanalyticalwriting824 · 4 years

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Write Your Ico White Paper Yourself

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Technical, monetary and industrial details about the project is defined in this document. Normally they aim to provide a doc that explains in plain language what they’re planning to do, to attract buyers and different involved events. You can showcase how forward-pondering and solution-oriented your improvement team is by highlighting a number of potential issues and their solutions in the ICO white paper. Your buyers will undoubtedly have concerns regarding the last project and its submit-launch improvement. Depending on the size of your project and the trade it goals to penetrate, you also needs to embrace a breakdown of your growth staff within the ICO white paper. Founders give a pressure and thoroughness to the writer to draft the document nicely. ICOs work as a fundraising mechanism for the launch of a crypto product. Success pertains to the industry that a startup business can generate. 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conclusionincompare419 · 4 years

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It’S Never Been Easier To Launch An Ico

It’S Never Been Easier To Launch An Ico Once you begin writing, a natural flow develops and you’ll have the primary draft prepared in no time. Keep it ShortThe only thing you need is an ICO white paper template and a psychological notice that you will not write more than 900 phrases per part of the white paper. If you'll be able to’t explain something in underneath that word-restrict, you’re doing it incorrect. The ICO White Paper Structure should comply with the following flow. You can play with the titles of the segments however the fundamental concept must remain the identical. It should clearly outline exactly downside you intend to solve. It completely wants to stand out from the crowd and make traders wish to read on. Given that the common investor will learn lots of if not thousands of whitepaper outlines yearly, it isn't difficult to see why most solely get so far as the project define. To persuade investors to buy the tokens you issue as part of your ICO. 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It instills belief and creates a personal impact on the readers. Consequently, your language, in addition to your content, should be shaped by what shall be of curiosity and attraction to them. When reading this white paper notice how properly presented it is. It has a clear table of contents that includes fast-observe links to each of the suitable sections. The whitepaper consists of all of the data I even have detailed above which is introduced in dedicated sections. Acquire ICO White Paper providers from this type of group is a further creditable one for the dream project and enterprise. There isn't any direct reply to it that is because it is upgraded each time, each time the business moved to the following stage. So, there can not have a proper expire time for ICO white paper because it is benefits in addition to its usage of exclusive market technique. The written communication like white paper will create a great impression among the global individuals and encourage them, which is the ultimate aim of every enterprise folks. For more information on the proper format, read this article which covers it in full. Finally, while it could be exhausting to listen to, traders usually are not more likely to want to fund a nasty idea no matter how good your whitepaper may be. So ensure you nail a great project concept that basically makes it a great investment. By doing all your analysis and following the important thing points I even have outlined in this article you will be able to place collectively a very good white paper. Remember that a part of your analysis involves figuring out and understanding your goal buyers. Likewise, a high-end white paper will but aid to improve your business in various codecs by it's salutary traits. There are 1,000’s of past white paper examples on the web. Your finest bet is to begin with past examples which had been profitable. Keep in mind that the fashion and approach of ICO whitepapers is evolving so you also needs to supply examples from the previous few years. A good white paper ought to begin with a precise and interesting summary of what the launch is for and particulars about the software program product.

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fmm85 · 4 years

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The recent bullish run in the crypto industry has attracted some bad actors whose motive primarily is to rob investors, crypto traders, and larger entities of their crypto-assets.

Just yesterday, India TV News reported that cyber-criminals targeted high-income individuals across India. Victims received messages through their social media groups asking them to sell and buy Bitcoin via a mobile app.

Manan Shah, Founder and CEO of Avalance Global Solutions, told IANS that the rich are not immune to these growing menace. He said:

“I have seen so many wealthy Indians falling into the trap of such fake cryptocurrency wallets in the recent past. One gentleman just came to me who lost $50,000 (over Rs 37 lakh) while dealing with one such fake platform.”

READ ALSO: Nigeria to begin gold production in 2021 with the Segilola Gold Project

Recall that about a month ago, Nairametrics reported that crypto scammers gained $24 million worth of BTC in H1 2020.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has kept a lot of individuals more active online, scammers are pulling various types of scams such as fake ICOs, BTC recovery, fake exchanges, giveaways, video scams, fake tumblers, Ponzi schemes, malware, and many more.

READ ALSO: Nigeria attracts more Bitcoin interest than any country globally

Nairametrics proffers some vital solutions on how best to protect your crypto assets in the midst of all the scams. They include:

Verification

Always make sure you know the individual you are dealing with. If an individual is offering you an investment opportunity, check if they have a proper website and a Linkedin account. Read the white paper, and Google the project to see what others are saying about it.

If an individual is asking you for cryptos or your money, they are probably trying to defraud you. But if you are not sure, try to verify their claims and ask for proof of their identity. If you are still not sure if you are dealing with a scammer or not, you can send an e-mail to a relevant regulatory authority.

READ ALSO: LINK, most profitable crypto-asset in 6 months, gains 451%

Be Sensitive

Always be sensitive. If it sounds or feels too good to be true, it’s most likely a scam; even when it sounds reasonable, it could be a scam. If someone claims to have a recording or something else belonging to you, ask for proof.

Do proper background checks

Before sending your cash to any crypto exchange or online wallet, make sure you are using the correct website. If an entity or individual tells you they will make you rich, ask them for evidence. Scammers don’t like to waste time, so they will probably move on to the next victim once they notice you are not easily deceived.

Never release your private keys

Never give out your private keys to anyone, including your family members, and don’t keep your private keys where others might find them. Write down your keys and put them somewhere safe.

READ ALSO: Bitcoin thieves move 3,897 BTC worth $42 million in 1 hour

If you use a crypto exchange, use as many of their security measures as possible (like an authenticator, phone verification, or others) and make sure your passwords are complex. These measures will not make it impossible to be hacked or scammed, but they will make the scammers have a very hard time defrauding you.

Using cold wallets or a proprietary smartphone is recommended. These are specifically designed tools to keep your bitcoin from falling into the hands of hackers on the internet.

#CryptoBlog #Bitcoin #Crypto #Markets #money #Mysterious

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goldira01 · 4 years

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Some call him the Bill Gates of the crypto industry, but I personally think he is not just pushing forward our industry but transforming deeply rooted economic and social culture. He fills concert halls talking about the importance of decentralization and the freedom of money. He finds time to organize dinners for journalists, introducing them to the empire he built before briskly leaving for another meeting with his team. He is idolized by his colleagues, respected by his competitors, and radiates positive energy when you meet him.

In the 2019 bear market, he managed to keep Binance’s position as one of the leading crypto exchanges by launching its first initial exchange offering in January, developing its native blockchain Binance Chain, running a decentralized trading platform, launching a United States trading desk, and keeping it competitive with Binance’s futures trading platform — to cite just a few developments.

So, when the time came to make a choice for the winner of Cointelegraph’s first-ever Top 100 list, Changpeng Zhao’s selection was a unanimous decision among our editors.

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend an hour with CZ on the eve of Valentine’s Day — a holiday he would spend with his true love: his work — to talk a bit about himself and his plans (with the next major move being the launch of Binance Cloud, exclusive details on which will be revealed very soon).

[embedded content]

Keep everything simple and work hard

Upon learning that he was selected for the top spot on the list and being asked about his favorite accomplishments in 2019, he was characteristically humble: “Other than just putting together a really good team and then leading them forward, I personally didn’t really do that much. But the team did a lot of really hard work.”

2019 was certainly a year full of initiatives and product launches, all of which received CZ’s thorough participation. Within the next couple of years, though, he plans to build up a “more unneeded situation” for himself, so that nothing depends too much on him. After that, he shared, he can probably relax and spend more time traveling the world, breaking the limits of the mode “airport–hotel–back to airport–kind of gone.”

It is hard to believe he will one day do less than he does now, as he is such a maximalist when it comes to work. He is known, however, as being rather minimalistic in his personal life. No big houses, no yachts, not even a business suit. Neither did he celebrate the last new year, explaining that he stayed home because “it is just another day.”

“I’m not materialistic because it’s kind of hard to carry anything that’s physical. I like to keep mobile. I like to be able to live in a different city every month if I want to. And with a shared economy, it’s so much easier now. So we don’t need a car — you have Uber everywhere. You have Airbnb, so I don’t need to buy a house. I don’t feel the need to own a lot of stuff, to have a really complicated life. Just keep everything simple.”

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

“There’s got to be a few recently, actually [with enthusiasm] I can’t remember what they are, but there’s got to be a couple of first times [starts thinking deeply] recently. [long pause] I actually can’t remember that much, to be honest.”

I asked CZ whether he likes being famous and what the biggest challenge to being a person in the public eye is. If he had a choice, he promptly responded, he would prefer not to be famous. But Binance had to have a public face in order to raise money and continue to grow. It is also very important, according to CZ, to have a public face to establish trust with customers who entrust their funds to Binance’s custody. “I know we’re in an industry that technically we don’t need trust, but there’s still a lot of trust that’s needed in a lot of different places.”

CZ also revealed with a smile that he was forced to be a public face, as other members of the team did not want to go public.

“I was actually hoping there would be a better face, to be honest. I don’t think I’m a very good public speaker. There are also much better-looking people. But unfortunately, for Binance, it’s me. So Binance is kind of stuck with me for now.”

Keep calm and go all-in on Bitcoin

It was in 2013 that CZ began to learn about Bitcoin. He read the white paper and started going to thematic events. Later, at a small conference in Las Vegas, he met some of today’s giants of the industry: Charlie Lee, Matthew Roszak, Vitalik Buterin. There was also a representative of Ripple who taught CZ how to use it. In the process, he transferred some XRP to CZ. When they were done, CZ wanted to transfer the coins back, but heard in response, “You can keep it and you can use it to teach the next guy.” This sparked a wild crypto adventure.

CZ quickly became enthusiastic about the technology: “I thought that community was really nice. I had a really high confidence in Bitcoin succeeding, in cryptocurrency succeeding.”

In 2014, CZ sold his house to go all-in on Bitcoin. Within three months, BTC dropped from $600 to $200, losing him two-thirds of the value of his house for roughly two years before the price went up again. When asked whether he would advise someone to take such a risk, CZ responded more as a wiseman than a poker player: “For different people, that risk appetite and risk situation is different. I would not recommend people who are struggling to pay off mortgages on their house and who need a guaranteed income from their investments to pay off some loan, to sell their house and go all-in on crypto, because crypto is highly volatile.”

You seem such a calm person. Do you meditate, or were you born like this?

“I don’t meditate that much. I tried it. I find it a little bit boring, to be honest. I don’t need it. I’m already very calm. I have a low heart rate. My resting heart rate is like 50-something. In Binance, I’ve never shouted. I’ve never yelled at anybody. I’ve never sort of become really sort of agitated. I’m always a very calm person.”

Not only did he sell the house, he also quit his job. Within two weeks, he managed to find a new one at blockchain.info, where he stayed for five months before joining OKCoin as chief technical officer. There, he spent no more than a year. It was 2017, the year of Binance’s foundation.

Along the way, CZ contributed to a considerable number of startups, many of which failed. He has a tip that helps him stay optimistic, a parable he once heard from someone: “If you walk to the bottom of a valley, what do you do? And the answer is pretty simple: You just keep walking as long as you keep walking. Then you eventually get out of the valley.”

Keep coding and get an MBA

CZ majored in computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. But the last time he was coding something, he said, was a couple of years ago. He has never coded for Binance — all its code is written by others — but he was writing scripts for himself. Now, he admits to not having any time to sit down and stare at a computer screen uninterrupted. It is simply not his current life situation. He called his time very segmented, as he gets interrupted very often.

“I tell other people that now I have a memory of a goldfish, like I can’t remember anything longer than seven seconds.”

When asked for advice to the next generation of founders on whether it is better to get a degree in computer science or a master’s degree in business administration, CZ rejects the premise of the question and says to go for both. His view is that, in this sector and at this capacity, you are forced to deal with everything: technology, business models, business development, deal negotiations, marketing, customer service, compliance, legal, accounting, finance, HR. And guess what? CZ doesn’t consider himself an expert in any of these areas. With my objection to CZ’s claims of being a poor public speaker quickly dismissed earlier, I decided that contesting him at this point would be futile.

Keep being number one and go forward

The first interview with CZ I took part in dates back to 2018. Back then, he told us that Binance tries very hard not to be number one, “because being number one creates other problems sometimes, especially with regulators.” In 2020, I asked whether CZ still agrees with that, or if he’d finally given up on trying not to stand out too much.

CZ admitted that two years ago, the market was riddled with regulatory uncertainty, while today’s situation is much better. “I think today it’s OK to push forward, get the market share, and you will not be the lonely one at the top who all the regulators come for.” He also added that there is more fierce competition on the market today, so it’s become harder for small players to build themselves up.

“But we are still at the early stages. We want to see more exchanges, because right now, all over the world, if you can see more exchanges, we can see more people coming into crypto.”

CZ seems very satisfied with his professional career: “I feel I’m really lucky to have the chance to be doing what we’re doing, which is to increase access to crypto, increase the freedom of money for people around the world. That is something I’m really energetic about doing. And I just feel lucky to be in a position to be able to do that.”

If you could clone yourself, what would you like that clone to do?

“I would love the clone to do other work [laughing]. I’d make a lot of clones to do a lot of work. We can do like ten different interviews at the same time.”

Keep cool, we are living in a simulation

Binance’s current focus on developing the freedom of money is intended to give people funding power to do more research on biotech, space exploration (this field, CZ leaves to Elon Musk) and AI — all of which, according to CZ, will help our species advance significantly. For example, CZ thinks, the Coronavirus issue could be solved once funding on research is sped up.

CZ definitely wants the existing world to get better, but at the same time, he is a big believer of simulation theory. It means that we are living in an artificial, digital simulation that is conceived or orchestrated by a more sophisticated intelligence. It also means, according to CZ, that in 100 or 500 years, the advancement of technology will make the simulation we are living in controllable.

“I believe it’s 99,99999 % we’re living in a simulation. So mathematically it is basically 100 percent.”

“If you look at that Nintendo Super Mario, we can simulate the guy moving forward, moving backwards. The tricky part is I don’t know what kind of simulation we are yet. We see it being simulated by a higher being, a different dimension — or are we just sitting, sleeping there, dreaming similarly about ourselves or our own kind.”

Even though we do not know in which simulation we are living, CZ explained, it does not mean we do not have to take it seriously. On the contrary, even if it’s a full simulation, everything in the simulation still matters. “There’s a Coronavirus that matters, there’s a flooding in places, climate change, all of those things are challenges that are thrown on our way. And we should try our best to help where we can.”

Another positive aspect of believing in simulation is that it helps dealing with difficult situations and stress, it kind of gives you a lighter view on things. “Sometimes you say, ‘Well, you know, it’s just a simulation, it’s just a game.’ My role here is just to do the best I can. So I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep marching forward. So it makes life a lot easier, actually.”

Rapid fire questions for CZ

Sea or mountains?

I’d probably choose mountains, but I do like ocean sports as well.

Beer or wine?

Beer.

McDonald’s or Burger King?

Burger King, because at least some of them accept Bitcoin and Binance coin.

Black or yellow?

Black.

Snowboarding or work?

I really enjoy snowboarding, but you can’t snowboard all the time. You can do a couple of days a year, it’s good enough.

Simulation or reality?

Definitely, simulation. There is no reality.

Changpeng Zhao is ranked #1 in the first-ever Cointelegraph Top 100 in crypto and blockchain.

#Timor Invest

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usitechio · 7 years

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USI-Tech Dallas Convention Update 11-12-2017

Hello Team. We have recent updates from the USI-Tech Dallas Convention from two of our leaders:

USA Leader:

Here are just some quick updates and Things I learned from DALLAS Convention. Lots of good news about the TOKENS aka TECH COIN.

Here are my rough notes. Kind of all over the place but you get the idea. lol

– 68,000 support tickets in 1 DAY – 1 guy put 80 tickets – 450k members – Horst Premium technologies – Evan Ahern and Daven Michaels partnerd + invested in USI – Evan owns the biggest rental business – Daven Michaels is the founder of 123Employee

Crypto. Power. Mining. Mining HVAC heat cooling. Trading. Merchants and consumers.

Proprietary hardware 8 GPU per Rig $70 Million USD on mining rigs $10 Million USD Mining rigs per month We will be doing 2.5% of all Ethereum mining in the world by December $19 M has ALSO been spent on BTC mining equipment -$10 M per month contract 1% BTC by Dec – IBM Watson (exclusive agreement / access to USI) – Reads all twitter feeds and #hashtags in seconds (makes trades based on general public’s emotions / trends etc.) – 0.02 seconds to solve Blockchain. Normally 90 seconds to 2 mins.

3 Million ATM (we will get a chance to “place” them) Crypto ATMs will Sell. ETH. BTC. Ripple. Tech coin. Tap phone chip (You can pay by tapping phone like credit card

Biz Transparency (Things they will post and show in the back office or main site soon for all to see)

– Crypto and Forex trading – Bitcoin branded mining pool – Etc branded mining pool – Financial reserves (show how much $$ set aside by USI) – Financial performance – Digital security – Operations – Forex 45-60 days to 140% (This is crazy!!! They were testing Watson + our Forex robot TOGETHER)

Trades

How efficient coins and their software are currently. (many companies are using the Ethereum platform because it is faster, so by the same thought they may eventually adopt ours because it is much Faster)

BTC 3 transaction per second ETH 15 transaction per second Tech Coin 10K per second

Questions to ask yourself if you want to effectively recruit and build a team.

1. Do u believe in the Company? 2. Do u believe in the leadership of this company 3. Do I believe in yourself.

FOCUS.

From our Australian leader:

I went to that meeting last night and it was very interesting. Learned a number of important things, although it was more of a sales talk I think. We could not ask questions directly but were asked to write it down on a questions card and put it in a basket. The question I asked was put up to Ralph regarding white paper. He said there is no white paper yet, but it is being put together. The Tokens are definitely worth getting because they have their very own blockchain for it and when they launch it out to the public it can be traded against anything. They are going to create a new Crypto Exchange where this can be traded along with others. They said that outside whales would grab it and have to buy it from us members.. So I am all for the tokens having heard that. It will eventually be called Tech Coin. There were a LOT of people there and they said all of their road shows were booked out around the country and they have decided to do another one in January 10-17. There will be a video available for download soon so you can watch it. USI Tech definitely do mining and they have their own technology . They showed photos of their data centre and its massive with so many mining machines probably in the many hundreds or thousands. I wanted to ask where that was located, but did not get the chance… I will find out. They have spent a huge amount setting this up. They said their machines are so fast that a trade is automated and it switches from one Crypto to another in around one second. No need to dibble in withdrawals and buys like we do, its all automated. Its their technology. They also do trading in cryptos. There was also a better explanation on how one can make money by being an affiliate and draft others into the program. A few people spoke about their experiences of success mostly by pulling people into the program under your 12 levels… It earns 10% commission on level 1 down to 3% for several levels below and then down to 1% under that. I think USI Tech will explode due to their investments in technology and data center, Tech Coins and Trading Exchange. I no longer have any concerns as a lot made sense, but I still have a few questions I would have liked to ask. They talked about the BTC drop in value, but that was not a bad thing, because they can still make money by short selling. There you go….

The post USI-Tech Dallas Convention Update 11-12-2017 appeared first on USI Tech Global Team.

from USI Tech Global Team http://www.usitech.io/usi-tech-info/usi-tech-dallas-convention-update-11-12-2017/

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thefabulousfulcrum · 7 years

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You Are Not a Rebel

via The Baffler

by Laurie Penny

IN REAL LIFE, nobody has the decency to realize that they’re the bad guy until it’s too late. The worst thing about the historical record is that it is usually written after the fact. Just think, if we could only get our hands on advance copies of tomorrow’s historical bestsellers, we could work out once and for all how we fit into this cruel and anxious age we’re living through, and get a sneak peek at the ending to see who ends up dead, decked out with medals, or living incognito in South America. Sadly, that would hardly help those of us who are most dangerously confused. The people who most urgently need to consider which side of the moral ledger their story will be written on tend to read few books in which they are not the hero.

It’s hard realizing that you’re the bad guy, because then you have to do something about it. That’s why the most aggressive players on the gory stage of political melodrama act in such bad faith, hanging on to their own sense of persecution, mouthing the plagiarized playbook of an oppression they don’t comprehend because they don’t care to. These people have a way of fumbling through their self-set roles till the bloody final act, but if we can flip the script, we might yet stop the show.

Let us remember, then, that in the violent psychodrama going on in their own minds, modern reactionaries, almost to a man, think that they are the hero. They think they’re the plucky underdog. They continue to think this even with their tiny-fingered mascot bellowing over the White House lawns and their agenda ascendant around the world, and I know, I know it makes no sense. But dogma doesn’t have to. And one of the articles of faith uniting all our modern proto-fascists, crypto-fascists, baby-fascists, whining 4chan fascists, and the growing number of fascists for whom any sort of prefix is redundant is that they all think they are rebels.

The new far right has recognized the enduring appeal of adventurism and appropriated its rhetoric for reactionary ends. Propaganda hubs like The Rebel repackage far right ideas as edgy and avant-garde, reassuring recruits that they are hip outsiders in a mass of squares and normies. This is a time-worn trick. As George Orwell observed in a review of Mein Kampf, “whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger, and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible.

Fighting for people who are less privileged than you to become even less privileged than you is hardly a revolutionary mission. CEOs do it all the time. Last year I was interviewed for a Vicedocumentary about the relationship between Gamergate and the new far right. I remember that to get the shot at the right level, I had to half-sit and half-stand on a fancy sideboard. While I was engaging my core muscles trying to balance, the affable hipster doing the interview asked, “But aren’t the guys a bit underground? Aren’t they a bit counter-culture?” I was so flabbergasted that I fell off my perch. Yes, I told him, they are underground, a bit. But even Vice magazine, which is woke enough as long as woke sells ads—another Viceeditor told me authoritatively a few years ago that “it’s not cool to be stupid anymore”—even they can surely see that simply being “underground” does not make something fit to dredge up. A lot of things run underground that would be better off staying there. Sewers, for instance.

This is what happens when we equate “anti-social” with “anti-establishment.” The far right think they’re the resistance. They think they’re Mel Gibson in Braveheart, when they’re actually just regular old Mel Gibson, screaming about bitches and whores and Jews and then wondering why no one answers their phone calls anymore. Well played, Rob Roy.

The Shitler Youth come in many flavors of plausible deniability, but none are quite so woefully iconic as everyone’s favorite ship of fools: the fake pirates of Defend Europe.

In case you hadn’t heard, a few months ago some white supremacists decided that the rescue boats trying to save desperate people from drowning in the Mediterranean were a threat to “European” way of life. (I will not dignify them with the term “activists,” because activists have meetings and have read things that aren’t spittle-flecked sexually paranoid internet retro-rants about white people being bred out of existence.) They decided to solve the problem by pursuing a merry life of adventure on the high seas. No, really. These rudderless twits went ahead and chartered a boat, with the initial, unabashedly evil intention of impeding the rescue ships, a plan which was quickly changed to “monitoring” said ships, as apparently nobody had any idea how to do actual sea battle, because whatever the copyright people told us, downloading a lot of free porn does not, by itself, make you a pirate.

They got a lot of press, of course, which was part of the idea—there’s no point being a rebel if you can’t get your picture in the paper. They even got Katie Hopkins, Britain’s own dollar-store Eva Braun, to come along for part of the ride, presumably as some sort of totem against shipwreck, because any self-respecting god of the ocean would spit Hopkins right back out again. Deliciously, before they had even managed to embark on their main voyage, they accidentally smuggled twenty-one Sri Lankan asylum seekers into Europe. Then their boat stalled in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. The founder of the Sea-Eye, the NGO ship that was sent to offer aid—the pouting stalwarts refused help—told the public that “to help a ship in distress is the duty of anyone who is at sea, without distinction to their origin, color, religion, or beliefs.” Hopefully the Sea-Eye was also stocked with burn cream.[*]

The very worst part about this entire episode is that an actual rescue ship was diverted to help these cretins, a rescue ship that could have been saving people who are really fleeing for their lives, rather than simply fleeing reality. I’m not going to permit myself to wish the baby-fascists had fucking drowned, but I do hope the stalled vessel gave these quisling Quixotes time to check out their own reflection in the surface of the sea and wonder whether being “underground” was quite so much fun anymore. I also hope that when they make the movie of this, every single one of them is played by Nicolas Cage in a variety of unconvincing wigs.

Claiming that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

In the United States, radicalized extremists on the far right are also due for a rebrand, having been embarrassed on the international stage in Charlottesville by fellow travelers who took the street-fighting-Nazi live-action roleplay too far, marched around screaming about being replaced by Jews, and murdered someone. The Shitler Youth are now going through desperate conniptions trying to claim that anti-fascists are morally equivalent to fascists, that “all sides” are aggressive and forthright, which is a little like claiming that, as both take a toll on the body, cancer and chemotherapy are basically the same.

Shit got real, eh? One minute you’re a nice normal boy with hobbies and internet friends, and the next, your picture’s all over the place holding a torch and doing the Nuremberg uglyface and your parents won’t talk to you because everyone thinks you’re a militant racist, and they’re right. If I may talk directly to these self-deluding subterraneans: I’m sorry to be the one to point this out, but you have been radicalized. There’s a reason people call you Vanilla ISIS. ISIS think they’re rebels, too. Have a good hard look at these Defend Europe twits with their rickety armada. These are your people. They’re your compadres. You are paddling beside them in the shallow end of political discourse, screaming when anything living nibbles your toes.

This is what happens when we fetishize the romance of rebellion while making actual social change impossible. My guess is that the ruling class, the people whose agenda these people’s mean-spirited credulity serves, aren’t standing about with flaming torches screaming that they’re about to be replaced by Jews. They don’t spend their time harassing girls on the internet. They outsource that shit. To suckers. For free. Meanwhile, the ruling class is just writing the speeches and jerking the strings and watching gullible, self-anointed rebels make fools of themselves on television.

These are the very people whose names the Shitler Youth wear on their unbelievably ugly hats and t-shirts, which incidentally is exactly what happens when you let straight white guys who consider gold a neutral design your neo-fascist aesthetic. The one problem with calling these faux-rebels Nazis is that it suggests they know how to goddamned get dressed in the morning. The left are out-styling them as well as out-thinking them right now. The left! Some of us wear hemp! And t-shirts with weak science puns! And we let our flatmates cut our hair! And we spend half our time fighting each other over tiny ideological debates that started before we were born, and they still make us look good. They make us look good because they’ve swallowed the fake oppression story cooked up by propagandists on the right to recast their most reactionary opinions as risqué.

So let’s be clear: getting fired because you hate women is not an equivalent hardship to getting fired because you happen to be one. People who have been disowned by their parents for being gay or transgender aren’t going to have sympathy when your mum and dad find your stash of homophobic murder fantasies and change the locks. Getting attacked for being a racist is not the same as getting attacked because you are black. The definition of oppression is not “failure to see your disgusting opinions about the relative human value of other living breathing people reflected in society at large.” Being shamed, including in public, for holding intolerant, bigoted opinions is not an infringement of your free speech. You are not fighting oppression. You are, at best, fighting criticism. If that’s the hill you really want to die on, fine, but don’t kid yourself it’s the moral high ground. I repeat: You cannot be a rebel for the status quo. It would be physically easier to go and fuck yourself, and I suggest you try.

The fact that some people—the women, people of color, immigrants and queer people you want put back in their proper place—disapprove of you does not make you edgy. A bag of cotton wool is edgier than you lot. Fighting for things to go back to the way they were twenty or thirty or fifty years ago does not constitute a bold resistance movement. It constitutes the militant arm of the Daily Mail comments section. Fighting real oppression involves risk, and before you start, I’m talking about real risk, not some girl on the internet calling you a cowardly subliterate waste of human skin, like I just did.

This was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node.

Of course, the fragile self-image of American nationalism has always been grounded in the idea of rebellion, in an aesthetic of protest and struggle for individual liberty powdering over the ugly worship of authoritarianism andhierarchy that was also baked in from the beginning. The United States has never truly stopped fighting its civil war, but the tropes and language of that war have been re-appropriated by net reactionaries in an effort to dress up their racism as rebellion, which by coincidence was part of what the war was about in the first place. That’s why there’s such attachment to the confederate or “rebel” flag among conservatives, even in states which fought for the Union; even in states which did not exist at the time. And this investment in maintaining a state of permanent rebellion is why net reactionaries have no idea what to do now they’re technically in power, like the confused golden retriever who finally catches that Ford Focus, except far less fluffy.

Mewling subluminaries have, for years, approached backyard fascism as a growth industry—why stop now? These enterprising intellectual bantamweights did not wait for the mechanisms of state and party to show them how to goose-step or gather seed money—this was gig-economy bigotry from the beginning, every bedroom hatemonger his own self-facilitating media node, like a sort of fascist Nathan Barley. The millennials among them have merely done what the television told us all to do as kids: find your passion and make it your career. It’s just a shame that their passion happens to be the creation of a white ethnostate with a stack of sexually frustrated video rants as a transitional demand.

So propping up the establishment does not sit well with their sense of themselves as brave, entrepreneurial outsiders battling the forces of something-or-other. Perhaps it feels strange to be told you have won when nothing in your own actual, material life has changed. Perhaps winning didn’t taste as good as the picture on the package. They were promised thrills and spills and danger and adventure and instead they’re on the haunted teacup ride through the wreckage of civil society and they’re feeling a bit sick but they’ve given the man their money, so they can’t get off.

And in any case this is not the sort of game you just win or lose. Politics doesn’t work like that, although in fairness, the sense that it does is one of several delusions they share with the political elites they claim to despise. Playing by those rules is a great way to make sure that the house always wins. What’s changed in the world in the months since their team supposedly won? The rich are still running things, they’re just a lot less shy about it. Living standards have gone nowhere but down. The planet is still sizzling towards climate collapse, and I know they think that’s not real, but you don’t have to believe in a train to get run down by it with everyone you care about while you stand in the middle of the tracks screaming about cucks and Jews like a prize prick.

One major thing, however, has changed, and that is that an awful lot of people who happen to be foreign, or female, or members of a different race or faith from these fools are suddenly living in fear of violence, violence the Shitler Youth and their crewmates helped whip up to make themselves feel like big damn heroes. Because they wanted to feel like they were fighting the power without actually having to challenge anyone who had it.

If you’ve a niggling suspicion I might be talking about you here, it’s time to take a look at your own reflection in whatever screen you’re reading off. If you want to cosplay as a revolutionary from a made-up time before brown people and liberated women existed, go and drink mead at a Ren fair like a normal person. If you just want to be famous on the internet, go and make some porn. If you can’t get over your fetish for fake oppression, go and hang out in a club where people wear expensive black rubber and get yourself consensually flogged by someone with legitimate rage to work through. But don’t call yourself a revolutionary just because you can’t stop running in circles.

[*] Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly suggested that the crew of the Defend Europe vessel had been rescued by the Sea-Eye. Although the Sea-Eye was temporarily diverted to travel toward the Defend Europe boat and offer aid, the latter crew refused help and the rescue ship carried on its operations. The fascists’ boat later restarted.

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