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I’ve already written about the way Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have been oozing their way into popular culture for years now, mainly covering Netflix’s quippy one-off jokes about dating crypto bros, or more nefarious criminal plot points involving money laundering.
But for the first time (as far as I can tell, it’s really the first time, unlike many a crypto press release announcing a new kind of tech), a play entirely about Bitcoin was put on in New York. “Off Broadway,” or even Off-Off Broadway, if I need to get technical, written by CoinDesk crypto journalist and editor Ben Schiller.
I arrived at the theater a little bit early and a little bit tipsy, immediately running into a college acquaintance who recently had his own play make it to Broadway. “Wow,” I said to him, impressed, “you’re really interested in this satirical Bitcoin show?” “Oh, no, what is that?” He looked confused. “I’m going to a workshop next door.”
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The play (or musical, since there is one number called — I kid you not — “Bitcoin Bad Boy”) is chock-full of Bitcoiner humor and inside baseball that only the well-initiated will understand. Even the pre-recorded voices that move the plot along or provide background noise throughout the show are mainly voiced by crypto journalists.
And the audience, on what appeared to be a sold-out opening night — full of the same people that I waited in line for the Sam Bankman-Fried trial with every day last fall — were lapping up even the cringiest Bitcoin humor. One actor compared Satoshi to both MLK Jr. and Christ, which got a big laugh.
The play itself was loosely based on both the crypto genius to jailbird stories of Charlie Shrem and Sam Bankman-Fried. The SBF connection was looser (although the main character’s overbearing mother is an effective altruist named Barbara).
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The Charlie Shrem connection was stronger to the extent that the main character is actually named Charlie Schwagg. And the real Charlie Shrem was there, having long since served jail time for his connection to the Bitcoin Foundation and the Silk Road. In fact, he was so present that I was booted out of the front row to give him and his wife the best seats in the house.
Play/musical Charlie’s crypto crimes are that of an open-source coder whose code is used to do bad things (in this case, kill people). His jail term starts Monday, and he’s fully resigned himself to serving out his sentence in full, taking the time to write his crypto manifesto.
His mom (effective altruist Barbara) wants to use their privilege to get Charlie out of the US, stat. Her hysteria culminates on Charlie’s last night of freedom at his nightclub, Pseudonymous, when she tries to drug him and shove him on a private plane to Africa.
Charlie’s girlfriend, the hippie Sally, doesn’t seem to care if he goes to jail or not, just as long as he gives her money to open a yoga center for humans and dogs. But in one of the final turns of events, Sally has to make peace with the fact that her human and dog yoga center will actually be a Bitcoin and spirituality studio — a plot twist which gets a sole, very loud, clap. At one point, Ben Schiller himself gets on stage to join a Kundalini yoga ritual at Pseudonymous. And without giving away the ending, Charlie does get a chance to write his manifesto, but probably not in the way that he thought.
Schiller’s play is commentary on crypto, effective altruism, wealth, finance, free speech and yoga. There were lines like: Decentralize your wallet, decentralize your soul. And: Well, you’re my satoshi/And you’re my goddess. And don’t get me started on the lyrics to “Bitcoin Bad Boy.” It’s so satirical at times to be nonsensical — there’s no chance in hell that a real life Bitcoin spirituality dog yoga center would be a real thing, let alone a thing needing $200 million (I dare you to prove me wrong, crypto builders!).
But what sticks in my mind the most was the camaraderie at the Bitcoin play. Just as waiting in line on freezing fall NYC mornings brought a group of crypto journalists together in a faux-polycule way, it was genuinely heartwarming to see the crypto journos and builders all come together in one tiny theater on the lower East Side to support cryptocurrency’s first theatrical debut. There was networking, there was drinking, there was someone checking the price charts in the row in front of me.
What more could you expect at a Bitcoin play?