A Modest Proposal: BritCoin

For a while now, I have been wondering how to steal money from stupid greedy people in a hilarious way fully explore the possibilities of crypto currency using history and humor.

It seems to me that given the current collapse in the crypto-currency ecosystem, the, "Sell by date," of this joke is fast approaching.

This is a non trivial endeavor, and one cannot hope to be as lucky (unlucky?) the founder of Dogecoin (who not-so-recently condemned the entire concept of cryptocurrency, BTW) in creating that widely used cryptocurrency as a joke.

There are a number of problems with cryptocurrency, beginning with the fact that it is now, as it is now structured, actual currency.

Currency is, or should be, current, meaning that it it should be available for use immediately, and with transaction times that start at 10 minutes, and can extend to over a week, BitCoin, Etherium, and Dogecoin are simply not capable of executing in an appropriately timely manner.

Another problem, though not a disqualifying one, is that the transaction costs of cryptocurrencies are large; larger in fact than the costs of credit card transactions, which knocks the pins out from underneath that argument for the use of these financial instruments.

Additionally, it appears that the underlying technology, blockchain, does not scale, and so becomes technically unworkable for any economy larger than that of a moderately sized medieval city.

I have a proposal, and I will freely admit that it will solve NONE of these problems:  It's not intended to.

Instead, this is about taking the piss (and money) from stupid British Nationalists and having a laugh at a cost that is (hopefully) smaller to society than Boris Johnson Liz Truss Rishi Sunak being Prime Minister.

I am suggesting a cryptocurrency which has the following characteristics:

• It would have a value constrained to be relative to the $US ranging between $2.00 — $3.00. (I have no clue how to accomplish this)
• It would be limited in the fractions that could be taken, so no unit smaller than 1⁄960 of the whole coin. (I have no clue how to accomplish this)
• It must use the notation of pre-decimalization British currency. (I have no clue how to accomplish this)

I would call this BritCoin, and I have made some arbitrary decisions:

• Only currencies officially in use, and minted, on January 1, 1900 on the British Isles would be used, so there are no half-farthings, third farthings, quarter farthings, and mites.
• I will not be doing the Guinea (£1 1s) but I could be convinced to use this, as it is still used to bid on horses in the UK.
  
• The preferred notation is £sd, so for example 5.898958333 BitQuid must be represented as £5 17s 11-3/4 d (5 pounds, 17 shillings, 11 pennies, 1 hapenny, 1 farthing)

Hopefully, this will make the coin too much of a pain in the ass to use for criminal purposes, but I can see it as a great gag gift.

My Google Docs spreadsheet for Britcoin is here.