I knew this concept of blockchain and distributed systems had been alive long before computers. I thought I’d read it expressed in a book. The memory was somewhere in my limbic system. I felt a desire for alfajores, the Argentinian cookies made with caramelized milk. That told me that the words I sought must be in Buenos Aires. There could be no other answer.
I bought an extra legroom seat for the 10 hour flight to Buenos Aires, hoping to solve the mystery.
I slept and slept and slept, but in the morning, somewhere high over the Bolivian Amazon, I remembered: Jorge Luis Borges had lived in Buenos Aires, where he wrote his story, The Book of Sand. It was all about blockchain, even though it was written in 1975.
One morning in Buenos Aires I visited the library, which is now a dance studio. A heavy man in a muscle shirt sat on a stool observing me while eating grapes, one by one. A thin young man gave me blank stares as he whistled upstairs, a signal. After a moment, a storekeeper said, “They are about to rob you. You can not film on this street because of the thieves.”
I felt the author’s presence. Or I imagined it. No, I did not imagine it.
