Is it Currency, or the Emperor’s Clothes?

There’s really nothing to learn here today, as I don’t understand the topic myself.

Cryptocurrency.

I don’t understand the topic, as I mentioned, perhaps because I don’t try. I’ve never once delved into reading any informative explanation or dissertation on the stuff because I simply don’t care.

I have no understanding of cliff diving either and have no hopes of learning it, as it seems like a long way down.

However, in all of this, I do have an opinion. I wouldn’t touch Cryptocurrency with a ten-foot pole.

Jumping to the side for a moment. Why do we always use a ten-foot pole when we are distancing ourselves from a proverbial mishap? Why not three feet? Or go the other way with twenty? How is it that ten always wins the prize?

It turns out this dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. They used to say something should not be handled with a pair of tongs. Then it shifted to the pole phrase, referring to a barge-pole. I’m guessing barge poles were ten feet in length.

Regardless, I’m not touching Cryptocurrency.

Even the sound of it is foreboding.

When I think of a crypt, I think of someone being buried in one. Like some creepy movie, with the dead person is sealed eternally in the horrible crypt — dead as a doornail.

It looks like we have to run down another path again, just for a moment. Is a doornail really all that dead? As it turns out, this dates back to the times of Charles Dickens. Door nails were used to strengthen the doors of old. The person building the door would hammer the nail all the way through the boards. Then, he or she would flip it over on the other side. They would hammer the end of those nails flat, bending it so that the nail would be more secure. This was a process called “clenching.” But, when the builder does this to a nail, it cannot be used again for another purpose. Hence the term “dead as a doornail.”

Back to Cryptoland and its money.

Yes, the term of Cryptocurrency seems to imply death to me. That seems to be the case when it comes to the failure of the coins.

I remember a couple of months ago, there was the story of a man that had invested in bitcoin a long time ago. At any rate, somehow, his investment paid off, and it was worth millions of dollars. But the problem? He couldn’t remember his password. And he only had another 24 hours before it expired, and all the money would be lost forever. Where would it go? Who knows. They never followed up on the story, which says to me that the guy was up a creek without a paddle.

Another sidebar. Up a creek without a paddle. The origin of this one is unclear, as I have found several different sources in one tiny search. However, the meaning is clear. One is rendered helpless. To make things worse, feces was often added to the phrases, making it: Up shit creek without a paddle. Quite a predicament, I’d say.

Back to the schmuck who forgot his password. I understand absolutely none of this. What expired in the situation? The password, or the bitcoins. In either case, I can’t remember any technology site in my history where the password expired. So, if it were the bitcoins that expired, it makes me wonder even more about the validity of the stuff? Are they like the self-destructing cassette tape on Mission Impossible?

Mostly. I don’t care. I won’t spend a penny on them. I don’t even want them for free in a giveaway. I’d rather have the Tupperware set.

And even more, I’m tired of seeing them in the headlines. They say it is investing. I say it is tomfoolery.

One more bend, on tomfoolery. How did it come about? Thomas Skelton was a court jester to Moncuster Castle in Britain in the 16th century and was the last jester working for the Penningtons. His antics earned him the name Tom Fool and this, was responsible for the phrase “tomfoolery.”

And those are my thoughts on Cryptocurrency.

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“What’s the whole point of being pretty on the outside when you’re so ugly on the inside?”
― Jess C. Scott, I’m Pretty

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“Sincerity – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
― George Burns

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“Facts are threatening to those invested in fraud.”
― DaShanne Stokes

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