CRYPTO RISES FROM THE CRYPT

by Royal Rhodes

AI-generated image from Shutterstock

“The Crypto Comeback” —The Daily, May 21, 2024

The bell tolled for cryptocurrencies,

doomed in its sheer insufficiencies.

But halving came

to goose its game

so bitcoin seduces new licensees.

A trial judge had jailed poor Bankman-Fried,

a name that Dickens, I think, would have tried

for a modern-day Scrooge

as a free-market stooge,

giving Wall Street a bullish new pride.

Investors had cried when their gains bid adieu,

so turned to the courts to argue and sue

with tort after tort.

But now a report

says their payback includes all interest accrued.

Royal Rhodes is retired and is grateful for the Social Security safety-net and government regulations.

PLAYING FOOTSIE

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Like many people, Mr Goxx is dabbling in cryptocurrency, hoping to strike it rich. He's notable for two reasons: first, he is making money, with his lifetime career performance up about 20% –beating many professional traders and funds. Second, Mr Goxx is a hamster. The business-minded rodent has a trading office attached to his regular cage. Every day, when he enters the office, a livestream starts on Twitch, and his Twitter account lets followers know: Mr Goxx has started a trading session. By running in his "intention wheel", he selects which cryptocurrency he'd like to trade, as the wheel spins through the different options. His office floor has two tunnels nearby: one for buy, one for sell. Every time he runs through a tunnel, the electronics wired to his office complete a trade according to Mr Goxx's desires. —BBC News, September 27, 2021

Pronounce F T S E the Footsie way,

Lest others think you're too naive to trade—

Although, as Fur Topped Stock Exchange, you may

Yet stupefy them with the gains you've made!

In Germany, a hamster, Mr. Goxx,

Negotiates his treadmill like a chess

Grand master, moving pieces of his stocks

From here to there to rival the success

Of Footsie and the Dow. By racing through 

Opposing tunnels, he can buy or sell

The cryptocurrency whose trade is due

So expertly, he makes his holdings swell ...

It makes you ask why Wall Street bank elites

Earn such high pay—for trades a hamster beats!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, The Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.