"Who would expect so much rampant speculation amongst crypto enthusiasts?" asks Stacey.
Five days since the start of the conference, and the controversy. Stacey and Jim are in line again at the buffet. Jim reaches for ultra-processed meat, this time of a slightly different color and with a slightly different sauce.
"Trust me," says Stacey, as she goes for the lettuce, "stick to salad. I've done enough of these conferences to know that that will always just leave you with an unpleasant combination of dissatisfied and constipated."
Jim's hand moves instead toward the lettuce.
"Anyway," she continues, "have you read some of these articles regarding this infamous Jerald Vilt video? Everyone has their own theories as to what it means. Especially since no one's heard anything more from him in the last few days."
They, again, try to find an empty table. Half the attendees left after the first day. So they have many to choose from.
"Since Jerald Vilt pretty much starts every morning with a post on what kind of toast he's having for breakfast... It is a bit strange," says Jim.
"The theories range from 'he's an idiot' to massive conspiracy." They find a table and sit down. "On the idiot side: He's too dumb to even do a simple Google search on his upcoming product name. Further, his social media accounts got compromised because they probably all use the same password and it's probably something like '12345'. Or, he logged in somewhere and forgot to log out."
"Hmm," says Jim, "but there's problems with both the Googling and the social media. With regards to not Googling FutureCoin: He's got employees. He's got investors. Somebody would have brought this to his attention."
"Exactly," says Stacey. "So, like, I'd believe it if he long ago found out the coins existed, but knew they were such crapcoins, he said 'fork it' and went ahead anyway."
"If it's a crap coin, why would he fork..."
"None of the coins mentioned in the video are actually traded on any major exchange. Futurocoin is traded on a few minor exchanges, but it is still pretty unknown. It's not like people think Bitcoin, then Ether, then Futurocoin. So I'd believe he found out they existed. Considered it irrelevant. And went ahead anyway. But what's hard to believe is that the first time he hears about these other coins is from a lion trainer during a live-streamed video."
Jim nods and carefully takes a forkful of salad, "Indeed, and the other part that's hard to believe is his social media accounts got compromised by his being an idiot. I mean, don't almost all the major platforms use two-factor authentication now? They have to because so many people are, indeed, idiots."
"Right!" says Stacey as she stabs her lettuce, "Nowadays if someone posts something stupid and claims they got 'hacked,' it's most like they just forgot at 2 AM to not sound as inherently racist or asshole as they truly are deep down, then get called on it." She points the stabbed lettuce at Jim. "Which is why people are thinking he actually did get hacked. And/or maybe something's happened to him, as we haven't heard anythnig from him lately. Some people are thinking the whole video was a 'deep fake.'"
"It would explain him somehow getting onto a yacht a few minutes after leaving a stage."
"So, that's option two. A giant conspiracy or something else nefarious like that."
"But that's just so unlikely. Why would anyone expend so many resources and take so many risks just to make Jerald Hilt look foolish?"
"So then there's option three."
"Which is?" Jim looks at his salad, unlovingly.
"He did it all intentionally. He made a video to purposely make himself look foolish, shared it, deleted it, pretended to make it seem like a leak, shared and deleted it multiple times, and did it all just for publicity."
"But," says Jim, "that doesn't make sense either. Because, now, who will want to invest in a technology backed by someone who seems so technologically inept?"
"Who? Probably all the new investors he's gotten since the," she uses her patented air-quotes, "'leak' which have double all his FutureCoin investments to date."
"What!"
Stacey shrugs, "If you read the articles about the video, they all start by saying 'everyone is talking about how stupid this guy looks in this video.' I guess with crypto if someone reads 'everyone is talking about,' they invest before they even finish the sentence."