In the 21st century the cryptocurrency landscape had undergone seismic shifts. Governments worldwide had clamped down on decentralised tokens and coins, centralising the crypto-economy under their own control. The purge caused millions of ordinary people to plunge into poverty overnight. The age of decentralised finance met an abrupt end.
The only permitted currency was now the centralised quantlit. Amid the crackdown, however, one token network had survived: AIHC — Artificial Intelligence Hard Coin.
Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies that relied on the computational power of GPUs and CPUs, AIHC was built on disk storage — an approach that allowed it to slip through the regulatory net. While the global quantum network had mined and subsequently outlawed every other cryptocurrency, AIHC had managed to exist in a narrow technological niche, a vestige of a once-thriving crypto world.
As Shoothis awaited his physical NFT delivered via the old postman, he pondered the changing times. The digital realm was in constant flux, always shifting, forever unpredictable.