Generations from now a new form of mafia takes over. Like the mafia of old these are semi-legal structures embedded in our cultures that are shrouded by mystery and with cult-like statuses. Unlike the mafias of today these are by far the most powerful entities civilisation has ever seen.
We call these the Blockchain mafias. Their history started before blockchains existed, but it was the blockchain that changed everything.
These entities started life as simple drug cartels and smugglers. The dark web offered them a way to sell their illicit products for bitcoins. Although their history remains hazy to this day I think it's fair to say none of these cartels really understood the multigenerational wealth that they were amassing at this point, nor did the governments who were putting half-hearted attempts in to shutting these entities down. It was a far safer transaction process for all parties involved, and harder to track successfully.
Bitcoin continued its rise indefinitely. Other blockchain value stores came and went, some with novel ideas. Every time, the novel ideas would be introduced in to bitcoin, causing it to grow more popular and more powerful. By the time all coins were mined over 30% of the world's economy and liquidity was powered by bitcoin. It broke down barriers, fixed the unfair taxing system, made everyone's lives easier, and levelled the playing field substantially. Early investors were greatly rewarded, although to this day 15% of coins remain completely out of circulation from this era - long lost wallets holding massive amounts of wealth. Some of these were retrieved but we have largely given up, knowing they will be relics of history. Satoshi's wallet remains as such, a famous landmark in the blockchain economy, where every transaction that has ever happened can be freely explored.
The revolution happened without much fanfare, and without much thought. It was simply convenient. No-one really understood the massive amount of wealth amassed by the early darknet market economy. Many of these coins had been traded for fiat currency in their early days, but many remained, slowly being traded and retraded as more of the world's economy began being powered by bitcoin. By the time we realised a handful of illegal entities had held on to by far the largest sums of bitcoins it was too late.
It's still not clear how and when these entities evolved, it seems to have been a natural process that happened quietly alongside the global economic changes. One day we woke up knowing that some old drug dealers were pretty rich, the next we understood they had created by far the most powerful entities that have ever existed. They controlled enough of the economy that who ever was in charge of their wallets could extract enough wealth to be the richest person the world has ever seen, and this could happen over and over for thousands of years whilst barely tapping in to the wealth they controlled.
Things started off innocently enough, children of former drug kingpins would party hard, play hard, die hard. Gory fights took place over these wallets. Soon the shrewd, violent psychopaths were taking control. They started buying huge armies, larger than the rest of us could afford with combined effort. They took control of entire regions, off limits to governing bodies. They created autocratic feudal societies that they ruled with blood. They enslaved women, put them in metal cages, force fed them, and force impregnated them to create generations of slaves at an industrial scale. A new type of the caste system, one the world hadn't seen before.
The riches of these new blockchain mafias could not be overstated; whilst the rest of the world aimed for equality, these mafias had armies of slaves doing their bidding. They built by far the largest and most impressive structures civilisation has seen. They built a moon, a project that took 200 years and the deaths of millions of the factory slaves. It made the natural moon pale in comparison. They oblitarated Mars entirely when the rest of the world was making progress in space to keep us dependant on them. A new pyramid was built that touched the edge of space, where the bodies of the masters were kept in a musuleom.
No person alive today can do anything about this. No collective effort can stop them. They have more force-fed slaves than the rest of the world's population combined. They raise armies from before birth, using gene selection and enhancement, a coktail of drugs and brainwashing to create the perfect soldier. They have agents the world over, making no-one safe if they try to stand up to these mafias. Every single person who has spoken out about these crimes against humanity has been violently dealt with very quickly. The last attempts at stands against these entities were easily crushed generations ago. There is no time for antagonistic thought to rush through society. We all keep our heads down. If we leave them alone, they leave us alone. We let them do as they please because we have no choice. At this point their slave labour has become an integral part of society. At this point our culture is heavily defined by them. Many innovations come from them. They give the carrot as well as the stick and we accept that. They've helped build great power generation, the beginnings of huge solar projects in space. They've helped in dasaster relief. By being a common enemy that was more powerful than anything else the world had faced they accidentlly created peace.
We all know we are no better than them. There was never a point in the history of civilisation where we demonstrated a truly just and moral world. Today we embrace the advantages they give and turn a blind eye to the astounding cruelty that produces this stability and progress. No generation of humans who have been born free in a civilised society can argue any differently. The face of it all changes, but the structure stays the same. An unspoken part of our nature.
