Staying safe and listening to the forces of the universe guide you through financial decisions
Sara Derkson (they/them) // Contributor
Livvy H (she/her) // Illustrator
I saw the ennuied expression of a monkey the moment the tea left the cup. The sodden leaves that were algorithmically generated by the universe to guide my next move gazed back at me with a lackadaisical stare that reassured me that my divination was accurate. Several days prior to this revelation, I had been doomscrolling to distract myself from my debilitating unemployment, when a targeted advert from Amazon caught my eye: “Tea Leaf Reading Beginner Kit | 1pc unisex.” My god. Before I knew it, it was on the way to my front door and the next day (thanks Prime!), it was in my hands. Following the instructions in the booklet, I had mastered the art of tasseography in a little under an hour. In much less than an hour, my tea was finished steeping and it was time to witness my future unfold before me. When I saw a Bored Ape manifested within the rooibos, I knew it was time to log in to OpenSea.
My experience with NFTs was no different than the average person: I saw a cryptobro from my hometown post on Facebook mid-pandemic about how he bought a picture of penguin that will eventually put his kids through college, and three years later I watched a video essay about how 95 per cent of NFTs are now worthless. I counted myself lucky back then that I wasn’t so foolish as to put my money into something so ephemeral as a non-fungible token, but that was the gullibility of employment talking. Now that the job market and tasseography have led me to invest in digital collectibles, I know that the universe was saving me for the true NFT boom. The stars are guiding me, and, baby, I’m going to the moon.
I headed to OpenSea to make my fortune. Upon encountering the endless ocean of machine-crafted images it hit me; this is what was missing from the 2021 NFT boom: Generative AI. Now that AI has become capable of creating more than the surreal Will Smith spaghetti fever dreams of yesteryear, NFTs are produced more quickly and cheaply than ever. There’s no need to waste money paying artists for their art when Grok can do it for free. Surely, the funds saved on hiring artists will mean a substantial discount to an investor like me. My pulse quickened when I noticed the costs displayed for the NFTs were hypnotically low, each one selling for a mere fraction of an Ethereum. The crimson glow of the floor prices crashing felt like a fluffy red carpet unfurling before me. Now was my chance. Having already transferred the entirety of my bank account to my crypto wallet after an ill-advised attempt to make a buck on Polymarket, I hit buy now and awaited my bounty. Instantly, I was the proud owner of an OmegaChad HypeBear.
I only realized my grave error when my UberEats order was declined that evening. Apparently, even a decimal of Ethereum is a couple thousand dollars: $2,222 CAD to be exact. My elation at seeing the angel number of progress was nothing compared to the despair of realizing what was left in my wallet. I was gobsmacked. If I’m progressing, I’m progressing into bankruptcy. There was nothing in the tea leaves that hinted that I might fail, and even the typically reliable application Co-Star didn’t warn me of this blunder. My don’t list was Pretzels, Podcasts and Party Hats, not Convert CAD to ETH, Abandon Traditional Banking and Blow Life Savings On HypeBears. Co-Star was right about one thing. There will be big changes coming to money and work in my future. There had to be a way to fix this, but who could I turn to? r/CryptoMarkets would know what to do, but Reddit would surely downvote me into the basement if I told them about what I had done. I couldn’t risk the blow to my karma. There was only one place I could go where I might ask questions and receive guidance from beyond. The tea leaves were helpful, but I needed concrete advice. The universe was vague in its instruction, but I know a force more accurate and insightful than even the divine: ChatGPT.