Hey! Wanna Buy Some Fungible Crypto?

I’m So Confused!

Deep into my dotage, I accept that there are things in life that I will never understand, such as why any rational person would put pineapple on pizza.

Also nuclear fusion. On December 5, “192 giant lasers blasted a small cylinder about the size of a pencil eraser that contained a frozen nubbin of hydrogen encased in diamond.” I can’t imagine doing that without making a big mess. I get that this process creates energy, but the science eludes me, which is why I won’t try it at home.

And then there’s cryptocurrency. I’ve tried to comprehend it, but to no avail. I know that it isn’t currency but a bit of computer code protected by a blockchain (my neighbor tried to make a blockchain but it only stretched as far as three houses)

How do you even buy crypto? “I’d like to buy 200 cryptos! How much?” Or do you buy $200 worth of cryptos? Or is it just crypto? And how do you use it? “Hey, I’d like to pay for that $20 T-shirt with crypto but can you change a fifty?”

Apparently crypto can be worth two million dollars on Monday and thirty-five cents on Tuesday. So if you buy a $20 T-shirt with crypto that’s worth two million dollars, did you just pay two million dollars for a T-shirt? Or is the $20 deducted from your two million? And if your crypto is worth thirty-five cents the next day, does the seller demand his $19.65?

Then there’s crypto mining, which apparently makes a big carbon footprint. I’ve done away with my own carbon footprint by not walking through carbon. But where do you mine crypto? On Crypto Mountain? If a crypto miner finds crypto, is there a crypto rush? Does a crypto-mining town pop up? Does it have a saloon?

But what really bakes my noodle are NFTs — Non-Fungible Tokens (which have brought a really obscure word into the mainstream). An artist paints a picture and you pay two million dollars for a Non-Fungible Token of the picture.

Is it your picture? Can you send a car to the artist’s home and have it brought to your home? After all, you can’t hang a Non-Fungible Token on your living room wall. Or maybe you can, if you get the right frame.

And can someone else buy a Non-Fungible Token of the same painting? Does that mean you each own half of the painting? And does the artist actually get a check for two million dollars? Or four million dollars? From whom? From youm? I mean, from you?

If the painting’s value goes up, is your Non-Fungible Token worth more? And what if the actual painting is sold to a private buyer? Do you still “own” that Non-Fungible Token? What if the painting is destroyed in a fire? Does your Non-Fungible Token go up in flames? Wouldn’t that damage your computer?

These things are for wiser heads than mine. I have enough trouble trying to balance a checkbook.