Kevin sat up, shooting out of his half-doze. "Are we gonna watch a video?!"
The teacher chuckled, shaking her head. "No, Kevin. Today, I'd like to talk about the e-currency of the future: Fuzzy Wuzzy Wee Bit Coins." Upchuck held his hand up. "Yes, Charles?"
"Mrs. Bennett, I'm already quite familiar with FWWBTC," he said, smiling the way he did when he watched the cheerleaders practice through his telephoto lens. "I own quite a number of them, myself."
"How forward thinking of you, Charles!" she commended. "That should make the assignment I have planned for this a breeze." A collective groan rose from the rest of the class. "Now now, it's technically extra credit...though most of you will have to do it in order to achieve a passing grade." The last was said sotto voce, with a depressed expression. She quickly perked back up, though, as she poured herself into the new presentation.
"Now, Fuzzy Wuzzy Wee Bit Coins, or FWWBTC as Charles mentioned it's called, was created a few years back by the Fuzzy Wuzzy Wee Bit Group Ltd., originally as a means to facilitate purchasing online amenities for your virtual Fuzzy Wuzzy Wee Bits. At first, you could only gain FWWBTC via the unique code available on their tags, but a website leak provided the source code for generating new coin, and it turned out to be rather genius..."
"Hey Daria, don't you still have a bunch of those Fuzzy Wuzzy doohickeys from that school trip?" Jane whispered to her compadre in the seat next to hers.
"Yeah. Emphasis on 'fuzzy', since they've been gathering dust under my bed since then."
"If there's something to this money of the future crap, maybe you can lend me some George Jetson funbux?" Jane asked with a waggle of her eyebrows.
"Sure. I take all denominations of Monopoly money."
Their attention shifted back to Mrs. Bennett, who had moved on. "Today, countless people use FWWBTC for everything under the sun. Some people think it might even overturn the dollar as the dominant currency in this country! Its primary benefits are the ability to be spent anywhere on Earth, the complete lack of fees when you make a transaction, merchant security via no chargebacks, complete anonymity -"
"Holy shit," Daria muttered.
"- and complete transparency in the flow of money thanks to the transaction chain. Now, your assignment, if you want to pursue it, is to acquire some FWWBTC and use them to make a purchase. Remember, if you have access to a computer, you can just create new FWWBTC in the comfort of your own home!"
The bell rang, dismissing the class. Jane grabbed her books and was halfway out the door when she noticed Daria wasn't with her. She turned and saw Daria still sitting at her desk, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water as she tried to digest the presentation Mrs. Bennett had given. "Hey Daria, what's wrong?" Jane asked.
"Jane, didn't you hear what Mrs. Bennett said?" Daria said, looking up at her friend, strain in her voice.
"Yeah, apparently you can forge money in the comfort of your own home."
"Jane, she said that it was completely anonymous and there were no chargebacks possible. That's...Jane, it's like this was explicitly tailored to benefit people committing fraud."
Jane frowned, her brow knit together in thought. "Well, what about that chain thingy she mentioned?"
Daria shook her head. "I don't know, Jane. I don't get it. Mrs. Bennett may not have always been the most lucid of our teachers, but this...it sounds honestly nuts."
"You're interested," Jane concluded. "Something smells rotten in the state of Maryland, and you want to find out what it is."
Daria gave the one-finger salute to Jane. "I'm not saying that's what I want to do, Jane. You know as a rule I avoid adventure whenever possible. But..." She tented her fingertips together, deep in thought. "It is a puzzle. And I'm intensely curious to see what the answer is."
XXXXXXXXXX
Any resemblance of FWWBTC to any real-life massively fraudulent cryptocurrencies is purely coincidental. coincidental.
To be continued. TBC. BTC.
