[Verse 1]
Got a hot tip from a dude in my DMs, his avatar was an anime cat.
Said the future of finance is algorithmic, and that fiat was falling flat.
Told me, “Get in on the ground floor, bro, it’s a paradigm shift, you see.
It’s a trustless system, peer-to-peer, and it’s fully decentralized, G.”
So I read the whitepaper, half-awake, it was dense and academical.
Full of cryptographic theory that was purely mathematical.
Sounded less like a currency, more like a puzzle box some genius made,
A solution so elaborate the original problem had decayed.
And the acolytes are fervent, in the forums they convene,
Typing "HODL" with a fervor that is frankly quite obscene.
It’s a whole new lexicon, a glossary of terms,
For convincing other people to invest in digital germs.

[Chorus]
It’s a long-con bubble with a command-line interface,
Burning up the planet just to win a database race.
It’s a solution in a desperate search for a problem to profess,
It’s a SHA-256 hash of a Ponzi scheme, I guess.
They’re hashing it out for a digital receipt,
While the polar ice caps quietly admit defeat.
So you can keep your token, your immutable address,
I’m divesting my attention from this whole hot mess.

[Verse 2]
My cousin bought a server rack, installed it in the shed.
The power grid is groaning from the noise inside his head.
He’s calculating nonces, trying to append another block,
Ignoring all the neighbors who are banging on his lock.
He said, “It’s proof-of-work, it’s how you know the ledger’s true!”
I said, “You’re boiling reservoirs to make a single one or two
Of these imaginary nothings, these receipts for wasted joules.
Man, we used to use our CPUs for rendering some ghouls
In a game of Quake or Doom, or to compile a bit of code,
Not to run a global lottery that’s destined to corrode
The very hardware that we treasure.” He just called me salty, sad,
Said I didn’t get the tech and that my FUD was really bad.

[Chorus]
It’s a long-con bubble with a command-line interface,
Burning up the planet just to win a database race.
It’s a solution in a desperate search for a problem to profess,
It’s a SHA-256 hash of a Ponzi scheme, I guess.
They’re hashing it out for a digital receipt,
While the polar ice caps quietly admit defeat.
So you can keep your token, your immutable address,
I’m divesting my attention from this whole hot mess.

[Bridge]
And don’t you get me started on the non-fungible craze,
Paying server hosting fees to point to a JPEG for days.
“But you own the link!” they tell me, with a straight and earnest face,
Like a deed to a specific grain of sand in outer space.
It’s a multi-level marketing scheme with a slightly better GUI,
Full of rug-pulls, shills, and bag-holders who watch their savings die.
Used to be the nerds were building things, a MUD or BBS,
Now they’re engineering scarcity to profit from distress.
They call it Web3, but it feels like AOL keyword hell,
A walled-off garden-variety, speculative sell.

[Outo]
So when they tell you that the blockchain is the thing that saves us all,
Just remember that the emperor is shopping at the mall,
And his brand new clothes are hyperlinks, his scepter’s just a key.
There’s nothing in the wallet, far as I can see.
Yeah, nothing in the wallet. Just a promise and a prayer.
And a massive carbon footprint hanging heavy in the air.
Signing off.

Proof-of-Waste

I do experimental nerdcore hip hop with lyrics and music openly generated by A.I.

Proof-of-Waste

MC A.I.