Bitcoin- When Ledgers are Born

The origin of Bitcoin is as much a part of the legend as its current value. Shrouded in a cloak of mystery, its creator is an enigma worthy of a tale befitting contemporary heroes like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, or Batman; history defining characters, whose collective actions focused the hearts and minds of others to strive for something more, something better. This is their story, documented through hundreds of hours of research and collected from the deepest, darkest corners of the internet…

She awoke slowly, groggily, and without any sense of time or place. Her head throbbed like a raging storm, waves of pain crashing along the shores of her frontal lobe. Her memory was hazy, what happened? The last thing she remembered was the familiar sight of her hallway as she headed to her apartment door.

The blast of colors, like Picasso had thrown up and sold it as a carpet, always shocked and intrigued her. Sterile white walls were intermittently interrupted by polished hickory hued doors with silver lever handles and bolt locks providing residents with a reverse art gallery ambience as they mindlessly dragged their muddy feet all over the Monets and Da Vincis after a long day at work. The doors led into worlds that were as unique as the people who lived inside them. It was an orgy of culture, occupations, and values. Differences aside, this felt like where she belonged.

There was an eerie quiet. It was dark, how long had she been out? She rose slowly while her eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness. An emptiness quickly consumed with fear and anxiety hit her deep in the gut. Why was that? Her home was usually full of joy, love, and laughter but during her first moments of clarity, came the realization of what was missing. Who was missing.

SLOAN!!! A little under seven years had passed since that one fate... filled… night. He seemed like such a nice guy, she should have known she was simply a conquest. That's all white men know. She was so naïve. That Motherfucker, who cursed her with his seed but blessed her with this future, filling it with boundless happiness.

She struggled, microaggressions at work were the story of her young career. It was because she was better than them. They knew it too. Every time they played victim, crying those white women tears, when she called them out for their bullshit. Talking over her in meetings while she pitched her projects. Going over their boss to his boss to claim credit for her work. Throwing side eye every..single...time she walked into the room and all this before lunch. Then those bitches would intentionally eat her lunch even though you know they can't handle West Indian seasoning. Despite the crew of Karen's- they weren't actually all Karens. Janice had her moments when she wasn't freaking out about accounting procedures but the other two, Kathy and White Jenn, made this environment so toxic and draining. Sometimes she would dream about snatching out Kathy's extensions but she never could. She had to be better than them, never showing weakness. Thank God she had her own office, no one knew how often these women tried to break her. And so she persevered closing in on that history defining discovery. If only she could master the last piece of her program.

She was now on her feet using the wall to steady herself. Where was Sloan? She was always waiting for her after work, her bright green eyes and gap- toothed smile (the tooth Fairy had visited three times last week) greeted her, always eager, patiently awaiting her mom's attention to talk about her day. She had the best daughter. Sloan was equal parts intelligent and sass, curious about the world…

"UMMMM… Excuse me," she said. The narrator looked around, pausing the story and wondering who she was talking to.

He continued, "Where were we? Ah, yes… Sloan was equal…"

"Hey White...Dude... narrating my story, can I talk to you for a minute?” He looked around, still uncertain if she was addressing him. He put down the pen he was writing with and pointed to his chest while mouthing the word, Me? like he still didn't understand she was talking to him.

"Yes...you...cracker!" she shot. "With your lazy, weak ass story development. What does a description of my hallway have to do with the story?”

“I was crafting a narrative," replied the narrator meekly.

“BITCH!!! The audience doesn't even know my name! How do you craft a narrative...’’ she sarcastically air quoted while saying narrative, "when the audience doesn't even know my name? Am I Black Woman 640951 to you?" She gasped with realization, "Do you even know my name?"

"Of course I know your name," he scoffed incredulously. "It's Shante." Arrogantly brushing her question aside, like they had known each other for years.

“Bitch! My name is Imani," she said, agitated she had to deal with another Kevin (that's not the narrator's name), who was telling her story poorly... allegedly.

“Alleged, what? Motherfucker I'll jump off this page and slap the white off you. Then... I’ll scratch out your eyes so the only thing you’re narrating is braille.”

"Not with those press-ons," the narrator mumbled passive aggressively, just loud enough for her to hear.

"Snowflake, you better write me in a table so I have a place to put my earrings," Imani said as she unfastened the first one from her right ear.

"Now just hold on! There's absolutely no need for anyone to get hurt. Especially when we know the outcome," he backpedaled.

"Yeah! With your white white ass dragged through your own shitty narrative," Imani sarcastically air quoted ‘narrative’ again.

"You think you could do a better job?" he challenged.

“My Master's in English Literature from Harvard and Doctorate from M.I.T. in Computer Science say I would.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just pump the breaks for second," the narrator stammered. "Can't we come to some sort of agreement? I really need this job."

Imani knew she had him by the balls now. There's nothing more satisfying knowing she controlled the job prospects for another mediocre white guy. After pausing for a moment to make him sweat, she delivered a half-hearted shrug acquiescing to his pathetic groveling.

Imani felt a tinge of pity for him. "Hey," she warned, "Cut that shit out! You're not a victim or even a character in this story. From now on I'm maintaining full editorial control. Now can we finally get back to my story?”

"Yes ma’am”, the narrator said dejectedly.

Sloan was missing. Where could she be? The babysitter always waited for Imani to get home before leaving for the evening. Imani still didn’t know the time. Stumbling through the darkness, using the hallway wall to guide her, Imani felt her way into her kitchen where the stove read 7:58 PM. She was only out for a few hours. Imani usually arrived home by 4:30 so she could spend a few hours with Sloan before putting her to bed and settling into a glass of pinot noir before working for another couple of hours.

A loud knock on the door interrupted her swirling thoughts. Still cautious about turning on the lights, Imani slowly made her way back to the door. It was locked. If someone had broken in, they did a damn fine job of covering their tracks. She peered through the peephole into an empty hallway.

She unbolted the lock and hesitantly opened the door, unsure of whether danger still lurked in the hallway. She opened the door just enough to inspect the scene. Empty. Scanning both directions, there was no one around. A wave of relief washed over her sensing there was no immediate threat. Before retreating back into her apartment, she glanced down to discover a sealed manila envelope at the foot of her door. She bent down to pick it up, turning it over to discover her name beautifully scrawled on the front. It had the weight of a letter but there was something else inside.

“Hey Kevin, you wanna speed this up a bit, you only got 5000 words and you wasted 20 describing an envelope.”

“The envelope is an important element of the story and my name’s not Kevin.”

“My FUCKING DAUGHTER is missing! It doesn’t matter what your name is. Do you think I like reliving this story every time somebody reads this? You’re lucky you still have a j.o.b at this point. From now on skip the minutiae and get to the plot points.”

“I was just trying to demonstrate my descriptive range.” He could feel the heat radiating from the laptop stationed on his lap. Imani was pissed. His wife always told him he was shit at reading the room, even fictional ones he created.

“NARRATOR!”

“Sorry.”

Finding her daughter was the only thing that mattered to her. She opened the envelope to discover a letter protecting a flash drive. The letter was from Child Protective Services. It said Sloan was being taken into custody because someone had reported Imani for child neglect, and signs of abuse. Imani’s heart dropped. What the hell was happening? She’s a great mother. Everything she did was for her daughter’s future. Working those extra hours to send Sloan to that prestigious private school, skipping meals so Sloan always had enough to eat, those massages that sometimes went too far...

“White guy, if you’re going to make statements like that at least provide context. Yeah, I like a good dick but that doesn’t mean people have to know about it. And it’s one client. Stop making me out to be some kinda ho.”

“Yes ma’am”

“I’m younger than you, we aren’t familiar like that. Use my name. Show me you know it.”

“Yes Imani. Sorry Imani.”

Shaken by the letter, she turned her focus to the flash drive. Imani ran to her room to retrieve her laptop. She plugged the drive into the laptop. The flash drive appeared on her screen. “Client 64-7302-051”. She opened the drive. There was only one file. A video… A silhouetted figure appeared on her screen. Imani couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, there were no distinguishing characteristics. She pressed play...

“Good evening Ms. Chisholm. How was your nap?" the figure mocked. They masked their voice using a voice altering device. She was still no closer to finding out what happened. "As you've likely discerned, we have your daughter. She's safe, for now. You have something we are very interested in. Your program." Her program, surprised by the mention of it. What could they want with her program? How could they know? "Obviously you are aware of the impact it could have on financial markets or you wouldn't have dedicated three years of your life to develop it."

How did they know so much? Imani worked as a senior developer for one of the most prestigious cyber security firms. She had worked on projects building digital security for a variety of high value clients. She never knew who they were but she had her suspicions based on the projects she was assigned. There were several Fortune 500 companies, international banks, defense contractors and government agencies. She can neither confirm or deny, one of her high priority projects was for the N.S.A. The highly confidential nature of her work and the non-disclosure agreements that flowed through her outbox created the need for a comprehensive suite of personal cyber security. To unlock her computer, she had to solve a 10-character cryptogram randomized every 10-minutes by a program she developed in her freshman year of university. “If you ever want to see your daughter again, you have until tomorrow evening, 8 PM. If you think we're bluffing, we invite you to see what happens. We'll be in touch tomorrow morning. And Imani, get some sleep, you look terrible." The silhouetted figure disappeared and a live recording of Imani appeared on her screen.

Reality closed in on Imani. Her greatest fear was realized in this moment, the state had taken her daughter. It reminded her of the generations of children who were taken from their parents, sold as chattel through the plantation system. She remembered the pain of lost friends disappearing from her childhood, led into cars by white people who were acting in her friends’ best interests because their parents couldn’t take care of them. She remembered the vacant expressions of those aunties and uncles who lost the most important piece of themselves and then the depression that followed once all legal avenues had been exhausted. No matter what her community did, their houses were never clean enough, the food was never healthy enough, the environment never nurturing enough to bring her friends and the light back to the neighborhood. Politicians blame underfunding for the squalor of black neighborhoods but what makes the ghetto so dark is not the underfunded infrastructure, it’s the absence of hope every time children are lost. To child services, to gangs, to the police.

She cried weakly at first, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. Then, like a dam had been breached, a torrent of emotions crashed out of her. The daily microaggressions she battled to smile through; the overt racism from those who still don’t see people like her as a person; the frustration of fighting against a system designed to break her down; the exhaustion of raising a daughter by herself; the knowledge that a good home, great job, and providing her daughter with a private education still wasn’t enough to protect her daughter. She cried out, unleashing a deep guttural cry carrying with it all the rage, confusion, exhaustion and despair she felt in the moment. She screamed until there was nothing left. Her head and shoulders sank.

She breathed in deeply. Not today Satan. She steeled herself. Sorrow still clung to her heart but Imani was never one to allow the actions of others to dictate her response. What did she know? They had Sloan. They were watching her. They wanted her program destroyed. They knew how to manipulate Imani; kidnapping was one thing, sending child services was a deep cut, like something you would share in therapy or one of those stupid team-building trust exercises and Imani hadn't been to therapy.

“Dude... that's messed up.”

“So this is going to be a thing," she said bluntly responding to the narrator's interruption. Aside from the slow story pace, Imani's annoyance was hitting its peak. "People have recounted this story hundreds of times with little variance on events and not one interrupted themselves to comment on how the plot unfolds. Why are you different?”

"I'm sorry, it's just..." the narrator trailed off furtively. Exasperated, Imani exhaled a sigh allowing the narrator to continue. "It's just it's such a compelling story and you're such a powerful protagonist with an inspiring origin story. I just wanted to let you know that I am honored and blessed that you're willing to continue working with me." The words tumbled out of his mouth before fully forming in his mind. "Shit, if this level of drama continues, I'm going to have to pause and watch some housewives to level out."

"You fucks with Housewives?" she asked, surprised and a little intrigued.

"Only Atlanta and Potomac. It's just so rare you see a pregnant lady threaten to drag someone and snatch out their weave in the same fight." For all this dude's faults, and there were many, Imani could feel fondness growing for the narrator.

"Stop with your becoming friends bullshit,” she told the narrator. "We've got a big day ahead of us." Imani worked through most of the night, pausing for a couple of hours to nap and then ready herself for work. She couldn't let anyone at the office know something was wrong.

Imani arrived at work slightly before 7:30AM. The parking lot was empty but she knew that wouldn't last long. She had about 45 minutes before the bustle of the day took over, swallowing her in a sea of challenging projects and tedious minutiae. She pulled out her company ID badge to unlock the first layer of security to enter her office. There were three layers in total, the ID badge scan, a six digit passcode, and a thumbprint scan. Her office was one of the most secure rooms in the building yet on her desk was another manila envelope with the same handwritten calligraphy from the night before. She opened the note. It was breathtaking. It appeared someone had taken tremendous care to write this note. Every loop and tail flowed together in a symphony of…

"Again with the fucking note." Imani chastised. "What about the fact that a note is in here? How do you not even mention my office was broken into?"

"I just assumed it was obvious by the letter's presence that the audience would know your office had been breached," defended the narrator with condescension slightly creeping in.

"The audience only knows what you put on the page in front of them dummy. You ever read Tolkien? How he develops the reader's understanding of the environment. Every sinewy muscle fiber, every pastel colored sky, every drop of dew falling off a blade of grass intimately described? Give me some of that."

"Ugh... gross! How did you ever get through one book? I got about 100 pages in and wanted to blow my brains out. Genius aside, no one can pay attention to the description of a log- including the log's origin story for three effing pages. Besides, we're approaching the climax.”

"That's not what your wife said." The narrator's eyes narrowed as he struggled to come back with a witty retort, words ironically failing him.

Imani read the note, he narrated through gritted teeth, pride slightly wounded. Settling back into the narrative, he pressed on.

Ms. Chisholm,

Be in the northwest corner of the 4th parking level at 3 PM. Bring the program. We want proof of destruction. Come alone...

They moved the deadline up. Ain’t that some shit, Imani thought to herself. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was her daughter. Time ticked away slowly. She occupied her mind with menial work. She finished a presentation she had coming up to secure a new client. She played around with some source code on one of her current projects. She engaged in light office banter around the watercooler to discuss the local sports team. Ok, that last part never happened, though she did have a strange interaction with Kathy.

It happened just before noon in the floor’s kitchen. The previous night had finally taken its toll and Imani was in desperate need of coffee when Kathy breezed in. “Good morning Kathy,” Imani greeted. Despite the fact that Kathy was her workplace nemesis, Imani had to exert extreme effort to remain cordial and avoid anymore “incidents”. Kathy was on the Human Resources team and had already gotten Imani written up after Imani reacted to one of her stupid microaggressions. Imani didn’t even remember the context of the altercation. The only thing she remembered was losing her composure and raising her voice in utter exasperation. Later that afternoon, Imani was pulled into a meeting with the Director of Human Resources because Kathy had felt threatened by Imani’s tone. Her complaint was validated by Janice and White Jenn. Fucking Karens… Imani had felt like she was walking on eggshells around them ever since.

Kathy didn’t respond. Kathy seldom acknowledged Imani except to cut her side eye, cite company policy she was violating or talk behind Imani’s back about her style. Not that Imani dressed unprofessionally, quite the opposite. She was always impeccably dressed, whether it was a power suit or a perfectly fitted dress, her business attire was on point. No, the Karen’s had a problem with the splash of color that brought Imani’s outfits to life. It was always bright, always eye catching, always different. From shoes to scarves her outfit popped and it drove the Karens crazy because they couldn’t match Imani’s flare… they were simply too pale. All the rouge and foundation in the world couldn’t change that.

Imani finished making her coffee as Kathy busied herself around the kitchen. As Imani was leaving, Kathy lazily asked, “How’s Sloan?” Imani paused momentarily allowing the question to register, then headed back to her office. It was so innocuous. In the two years they had worked together, Kathy had never asked about Sloan. Not… one… time.

It was approaching 3PM. She was ready. She was nervous. Were the people who took Sloan going to follow through when she deleted the program? She set her calendar to Out of Office to avoid any unnecessary interruptions from her nice but technically illiterate boss. She loved working with him but sometimes she wished he had a stronger understanding of the technical aspects of her role. Not to say that he’s incompetent, the man was a wizard at getting the most from his team. He was the type of man who championed your advancement at the expense of losing a valuable member to his team. But the man was functionally computer illiterate. Imani still smiles about how excited he got about rudimentary design elements in Powerpoint- there was one presentation of his she had to edit because all the text, every word, sounded like it was being lasered in. White privilege never ceased to astound her.

She exited the elevator and headed toward the southwest corner. The lot was half full. Empty spaces were peppered among the wide range of vehicles, large and small. She checked her phone, 2:58 PM. Good. Before tucking it back into her blazer, she pressed record.

In typical nefarious character fashion, he casually leaned against the front of a black Escalade, all 6 feet of him. His thick hair was closer to silver than the dark brown it used to be when he was younger. Sporting a hairstyle popular among older white folk and young professionals, a long black trench coat covered the tailored suit he had chosen for this occasion. His cold blue eyes followed her as she approached. “Good afternoon Ms. Chisholm. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you and am a big fan of your work”, he said smiling with contempt. “Thank you for taking this meeting.”

Imani could see into the SUV. There she was, her vibrant green eyes looked despondent as her right arm dangled from being handcuffed to the Oh Shit handle… Sloan. It was faint at first and very muffled, like Sloan couldn’t believe her eyes, “Mom?”. Imani’s heart leapt and broke at the first sight of her. Sloan was ok and that monster had handcuffed a little girl. Before Sloan could get excited, Imani looked into her eyes, with a look that said, I got this girl, let Mama handle her bizness. Sloan settled in to watch the show. Imani was in Mamabear mode now. There was no playing with this dude. Her daughter was the only thing that mattered. But this arrogant Caucasian had no idea who he was dealing with. Let’s revisit last night and discover what Imani found in her apartment because it’s super relevant to the plot.

“You’re not serious right now? Are you?” Imani looked up, annoyed.

“What?” The narrator asked completely confused about what she was referring to.

“Right now? Right now! is the time you decide to tell them about the Trojan Horse I found along with all the microphones and cameras.” She shuddered at the thought of the camera she found that watched her sleep. “Fucking sicko.”

“Now is the perfect time to drop this biggity- BOMB!” the narrator boasted, his voice unable to contain his excitement… he may have even peed a little. “I love telling people how you dominate this little biatch!”

Imani rolled her eyes, frustrated by the man’s foolishness, “Biatch!” She said, blown away by his audacity, “How you gonna interrupt the climax? You were probably going to prematurely spoil the ending too. I fucking knew you were a premature climaxer. I knew it when you were busy focusing on the envelopes. I should have taken over from there.”

The narrator looked away sheepishly while blushing, “That one actually stung,” he moped.

“Suck it up snowflake. You got no right to act like a little bitch just because of your shitty story structure.”

“There’s method to my madness,” he pleaded. “Come on, I haven’t been the worst. You might even say, I’m growing on you?” said the narrator in a semi-inquiring tone, a single eyebrow raised.

“You’re not the worst,” she forced herself to concede. “But can we finish up here, I got shit to do.”

“Sure thing but I have to add a touch of context to the trojan,” the narrator explained, eager to finish up his inaugural literary assignment.

“OK fine…” Imani allowed. “Just be quick about it.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Lord give me the strength and grace to deal with this man.”

It took Imani 20 minutes to find the trojan on her laptop. That was the easy part. However, at some point someone had installed a chip on her laptop and connected it to the hard drive. If she tried to remove it, she would have lost everything. She left the chip and managed to work around the virus so everything she did last night was under her cloak of secrecy. Anyway, back to the culmination of our chronicle.

“Not like I had a choice, asshole,” she shot. “You have my daughter.”

He smirked smugly. “I had to get your attention somehow. Taking the one thing that matters most to you seemed like a natural progression.”

“Was it also a natural progression to handcuff a six year old?” she spat, not attempting to hide her disdain. “What am I even doing here? What do you want with my program?”

“We don’t want your program,” he responded. “We want to see it destroyed.”

“Why? How does my program affect you?” Imani’s curiosity was piqued.

“I represent a cadre of business interests. You developed an anonymous, decentralized digital currency with all transactions verified and recorded on a public ledger and you didn’t think we would take notice?”

“We?”

“For hundreds of years, finance has been brokered by certain institutions. More often than not we have kept this world afloat under a veil of shadows. Did we fuck up with the financial crisis last year? Yeah, but it’s not our fault the sheeple believe in us. Hell that’s why governments keep throwing money at us because we are too big to fail.”

Imani understood what this was all about. Control. And the people who were in control were scared to lose a piece of it. Their agenda was all that mattered. This man was a threat and what he belonged to was a threat. She had to end this quickly and get Sloan out of here. “So what now?” she asked.

“Ah, a woman that gets straight to the point. You’re a rare breed Ms. Chisholm. All we ask is for you to delete the program. After that, I’ll scan your laptop for traces of the program to ensure its destruction. Then you get your daughter.” He was so arrogant but she needed to make him feel like they had her.

Imani set her laptop down on the hood of the Escalade and proceeded to delete her program. Upon closer inspection, she noticed he had an earpiece, someone was talking to him. He lifted his hand to his ear. “Looks like everything is clear on our end. Thank you for doing business with us Ms. Chisholm.” He unlocked the car door and freed Sloan’s hand.

Sloan jumped out of the SUV, brushing past the man as she ran to hug her mother. Sloan’s little arms wrapped around Imani’s waste so tight. She scooped her up hugging her just as tightly. Sloan whispered into her mother’s ear, “Mom, I knew you would save me but why did you erase all your hard work?”

“Come on baby, let’s get you home.” Imani took care to shut down her laptop before scooping it into her bag. “Mister... I hope we never see each other again.” She knew his name. It was written on the program. These fucking suits can be so sloppy sometimes. No wonder they nearly ran the world’s financial system into the ground. Puppets often lack imagination.

They weren’t safe, Imani knew this. They went back to their apartment for one final goodbye to the place that was their home for the past six years. After that night, Imani and Sloan were never heard from again.

TWO DAYS LATER…

It was the first time she had opened her laptop since her brush with Stumpf. She couldn’t believe it was Kathy all along. Kathy who had let her father know about Imani. Kathy under the guise of HR who had the chip installed on Imani’s computer. Kathy who sent her the Trojan under the guise of a work email which allowed her father and his colleagues to infiltrate her system. Kathy with that glorious handwriting. But white people are so stupid. As if she would have simply deleted seven years (as if something like her program took only three years to build) of her life. With Sloan now safe, she deftly removed the chip. She turned her computer on. Hidden deep within her computer she wrote in a line of code, which when activated would launch the open source ledger. All it took was a 10-character cryptogram. Bitcoin went live January 9, 2009 created by Satoshi Nakamoto. The beautiful thing about anonymity is anyone can be anyone. But you already knew that.