The Infinite Machine

by Camila Russo

There was Jesus Coin, which promised record transaction times between token holders and God’s son. There was TrumpCoin, PutinCoin, Dentacoin (“the blockchain solution for the global dental industry”), and the scathingly honest “Useless Ethereum Token,” which promoted its ICO as “the world’s first 100% honest Ethereum ICO,” saying it “transparently offers investors no value.” Its logo was a hand raising its middle finger and the website said, “seriously, don’t buy these tokens.” Still, people handed over almost $75,000 in its ICO. At the height of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, Pets.com became the poster child of irrational hype. In the middle of the ICO mania, Pets.com would have been one of the most conservative, well-grounded business ideas.