Chapter 30: The Bitcoin Milestone
The laptop screen glows in the dark apartment.
2:47 AM. Can't sleep. Haven't been able to sleep since checking the price at midnight.
Bitcoin: $0.30 per coin
I refresh the page. Number doesn't change.
My 30,000 coins—purchased at an average of five cents each—are now worth nine thousand dollars. Six times my investment. In eight months.
The whiskey bottle sits beside my laptop. Cheap stuff, but it does the job. I pour two fingers, raise the glass to my empty apartment.
"To imaginary money."
The whiskey burns. Tastes like a win I can't quite toast with anyone.
Nobody knows. Can't know. Leonard thinks I'm reckless. Howard thinks I'm delusional. Even Melissa—who I love, who loves me—doesn't understand the full scope. She knows about some gains but not the totals. Not the future trajectory.
My secret spreadsheet mocks me with its projections:
2009: $1.00 per coin = $30,0002011: $30 per coin = $900,0002013: $1,000 per coin = $30,000,0002017: $20,000 per coin = $600,000,0002021: $64,000 per coin = $1,920,000,000
Nearly two billion dollars. From fifteen hundred dollars and impossible knowledge.
I close the spreadsheet before the numbers make me sick.
The studio apartment feels smaller at 3 AM. Four hundred square feet of temporary housing that's lasted ten months. Soon I'll move to the penthouse—two thousand square feet of success made manifest.
But right now, in this moment, I'm alone with wealth nobody can celebrate with me.
I want to call someone. Leonard would demand explanations. Sheldon would create algorithms. Howard would make jokes. Raj would credit cosmic forces.
Melissa would ask how I knew.
And I can't answer that question. Can't ever answer it.
How did you know Bitcoin would succeed, Stuart?
Oh, I died choking on steak and absorbed temporal knowledge in the void between dimensions. Want to grab dinner?
The laugh that escapes sounds bitter even to me.
Another pour. Larger this time.
The catch with a head start this big is that you can't really explain it. Every dollar traces back to a memory I'm not handing out. Every gain is just tomorrow's news, read early.
Call it what you want. A man who skipped ahead and read the last page first.
And, sure, doing well off the spoilers.
It comes with a tab, though. Howard passed on Apple because I couldn't explain my certainty. Leonard's jealousy grows out of advantages I'll never spell out. Even Raj—who trusted me enough to buy in—doesn't know what he's actually riding.
My phone sits on the table. 3:12 AM. Nobody to call. Nobody to tell. Just me and nine thousand dollars of Bitcoin and the knowledge it'll be worth billions eventually.
The whiskey's half gone when the decision crystallizes.
This wealth—this impossible, slightly absurd, head-start wealth—ought to point at something bigger than my own bank balance.
I open a new document on my laptop:
HOW TO USE BLOOD MONEY ETHICALLY
Delete. Too dramatic.
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION PLAN
Better.
I start typing:
1. Help friends without them knowing it's charity. Leonard's consulting gig. Howard's confidence coaching. Create opportunities that feel earned.
2. Second shop location creates jobs. Real employment for real people. That's legitimate wealth creation.
3. When Bitcoin really explodes—2011 and beyond—start a foundation. Scholarships for artists and creators. Hand other people a head start of their own.
4. Anonymous support. Medical bills for customers who mention struggles. Donations to causes that matter. Put the lucky money to work.
5. Never tell. The source stays mine alone. Let people think I'm lucky—which, honestly, I am.
The list grows. By 4 AM I've outlined a real plan for pointing a strange advantage at something good. It won't erase the head start. Doesn't need to. But it gives the whole thing a direction I actually like.
Better to be a decent man with a strange advantage than a bitter one without it.
The sun's rising when I finally close the laptop.
Nine thousand dollars in Bitcoin. Sixty thousand in total investments. Eighteen thousand monthly revenue from the shop. And the next eleven years filed away in my head, waiting to be useful.
I look around my studio apartment—this temporary space that represents the lowest point of Stuart Bloom's life and the starting point of mine.
In two months I move to the penthouse. Physical proof of my transformation.
But right now, in this moment, I'm just a guy who read ahead and is still working out what to do with it.
The wealth distribution plan sits saved on my desktop. BLOOD_MONEY_ETHICS.doc
Dark humor, but accurate.
I pour the last of the whiskey into my glass. Toast the empty apartment one final time.
"To using a strange advantage well. May I be worth the head start."
The whiskey goes down easier this time.
Tomorrow I move on the plan. Help friends. Build businesses. Stack real value beside the strange gains. Turn a head start into something that lasts.
Tonight, I just sit with the loneliness of success nobody can celebrate.
The laptop screen dims to black.
My reflection stares back from the dark glass.
Stuart Bloom. Successful businessman. Quiet keeper of impossible spoilers. Millionaire-in-waiting, currently alone with it.
All of the above.
None of them who I used to be.