WITH RESPECTFUL APPRECIATION OF Keiserens Nye Klæder by Hans Christian Andersen.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Image from centralpark.com.
A Modern Fable. There was an emperor so exceedingly fond of wealth, whether inherited or self-connived, that he boasted about how much he was worth. This, despite a goodly number of his kingdom’s bankruptcies.
In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. No, scratch that. Anything resembling DEI was anathema to the Emperor and his supporters. Then one day came a con man claiming to be extremely rich. No, make that astoundingly, opulently, eye-wateringly wealthy, quite enough to catch attention of the Emperor, despite his supposedly having populist inclinations. Not to say the attention span of a fourth-grader.
Yet, claiming to be a very stable genius, the Emperor sought to learn more about amassing great wealth. Previously, to no avail, he had already conned business students, football players, hotel occupants, resort visitors, and casino players, not to say the occasion immigrant worker.
Fungible and Non-fungible. The con man, sensing he more or less had a live one, described cryptocurrency, digital tokens, and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
“Fungible,” by the way, is defined by Merriam-Webster as “something (such as money or a commodity) of such a nature that one part or quantity maybe replaced by another equal part or quantity in paying a debt or settling an account. Oil, wheat, and lumber are fungible commodities.”
Obviously Non-Fungible Tokens are not fungible. On the other hand, the Emperor was notorious for having the reading level of a fourth-grader and “fungible” is a big word.
“Tell me about cryptocurrencies,” he said to the con man. The con man readily replied and thence was born the EnCee, New Cash.
The EnCee. The Emperor himself (being a very stable artist) designed the EnCee: It was a token resplendent with the Emperor’s favorite image (of himself, of course), specially selected from a photo session in his kingdom’s Fulton County Jail.
The Emperor had already profited from selling this image on t-shirts and coffee mugs. In fact, he even posted one on the wall of his palace.
At the con man’s advice, the Emperor set the token’s initial value at a modest $5.97. “Don’t worry,” the con man said, “it’ll go up in no time.”
The First Jump. And, sure enough, the Emperor’s supporters got in line to invest in EnCees, only to find they had to pony up $6 (the Emperor had recent cancelled the penny).
“Look!,” the con man said, “its value has already risen 0.5 percent!” The EnCee was on its way to compete with the Dogecoin, the Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies.
A Holy Refinement. What with the Emperor having escaped the assassin’s bullet (once, maybe twice; who’s counting?), he considered embellishing the token with an AR-15, but opted instead for a simple cross. (Its embellishing costs were lower.)
“This’ll grab the Evangelicals,” the Emperor reasoned. “They’re already buying my $59.99 authorized Bible (Pay in 4 interest-free installments of $15.00).”
Enter a STEM Student. Wait, a young STEM student observed, “4 x 15 = 60. True, it’s a piddling 0.0001666… percent, but not “interest-free.” It is, note, an infinitely repeating decimal.
The EnCee Soars. Before long, the token’s value soared past the price of even the authorized Bible. “For one thing,” the Emperor touted, “it’s easier to read.”
But there was still that pesky STEM kid. Being of scientific bent, he had read Eric Budish’s “Trust at Scale: The Economic Limits of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, October 16, 2024. And Brad Wible’s “Trust Limits Cryptocurrencies,” a one-paragraph summary of Budish’s paper in AAAS Science, November 22, 2024.
The Importance of Trust, Even with Crypto. In particular, the kid learned from Wible, “Trust and security, which are essential for economic systems to function, are commonly based on the rule of law and factors such as reputations, relationships, and collateral. Cryptocurrencies instead promote decentralized trust through cryptography and economic incentives.”
That word “trust” struck the kid as important. Hadn’t the Emperor stiffed immigrant workers in building one of his palaces? Didn’t he have court cases a’plenty with numerous charges of betrayed trust? Hadn’t he been convicted of 34 felonies (certainly a greater count than your average emperor’s)?
The kid said, “Look, the Emperor hasn’t any trust.”
“Did you ever hear such innocent prattle,” said his father. And one person whispered to another what the kid had said. “The Emperor hasn’t any trust.”
“But he hasn’t any trust!” the whole town cried out at last.
“The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, ‘This procession has got to go on.’ So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the token wealth that wasn’t there at all.”
Thanks sincerely, Hans Christian Andersen. You nailed it. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025