Crypto Anthems

At half past 2, the chat is still awake.
A joke acquires a ticker, starts to shake.
Somebody gives a token its 1st song;
1,000 strangers learn to sing along.

The barker calls the builders through the gate.
A girl explains the chain. The comments: Wait —
1 minute? Give us more. Another scroll,
another voice, another hour they stole.
2 people talk of gas fees over chai.
Both cups grow cold. Neither has said goodbye.

A selfie gathers people round its frame;
a crowd begins to build around a name.
On Super Bowl screens, familiar lyrics glow.
Somebody sings a verse they didn’t know
they still remembered. Someone joins off-key.
For half a chorus, that is company.

1 voice gives 21 rules to the room.
Another writes a contract others bloom
into a vote, a work of art, a game.
Solana’s runners share a clock; each lane
takes work beside the others. TRON moves on
from borrowed ground to build a chain its own.
A genesis. A ballot. 8 years pass.
The birthday chorus rattles someone’s glass.

Then Wen? 3 counters brighten overhead:
accounts, the dollars issued, value sped
from hand to hand. A river passing through
is not a vault. An account is not quite you.
The figures climb. Beneath their changing light,
a worker sends some money through the night.

The song puts stable dollars round a Sun;
along its rails, the smaller journeys run.
Beneath the ice of TRONman’s shining chest,
a warmth the midnight routes put to the test.
A merchant checks a phone beside the till.
The sender waits. The room is very still.

Once, kerosene lit up a mountain child’s page.
Now markets fill her screen. Another age,
another kind of light — but when she’s told
a student’s money vanished, she takes hold
of that small thread: 500 sent astray.
She follows where the numbers fell away.

Elsewhere, 3 8s gleam on a license plate.
The Silk Road finds new business at the gate.
Above those roads, a capsule clears the blue;
the word astronaut carries TRON there, too.
The chat looks up. Then someone wants to know
how tall the man is when he stands below.

Bring out the ruler. Level out the floor.
The photograph has tilted him before.
From heel to crown, let 1 clear measure stand;
it cannot weigh the person or his hand.
The scale runs out. The arguments begin:
how much of someone can a number fit in?

And what does ownership amount to when
the hand that gives can close the gate again?
The diss track shouts. Another voice disputes
the story. Bring the terms beside the proof.
A balance glows behind a wall of glass.
Who holds the key that lets its owner pass?

In SunX halls, the neon rivers meet;
the breakers wait beneath the trading beat.
Next door, a meme goes leaping through the crowd.
Someone unfolds the contract. It is loud.
They lean in close to read who holds control
while bass comes through the floor into the sole.

On Nile, the test coins wear a heavier shield.
More bytes to carry out across the field.
The armor’s on the bench, its seams in view;
the makers test what larger threats might do.

The mind behind the glass can pay at last:
buy power, hire another mind, move past
the answers into action. Through the night,
1 wallet pays to keep another alight.

So many ways to hold. The phone. The key.
The coin you will not sell. The wish to be
there first, proved right, remembered when it climbs.
Breathe out. The market moves through other times.
The hand that keeps the key can still unclench.
Daylight has reached the window, inch by inch.

One day the barker’s voice will leave the square.
The jokes will need explaining. Silver hair
will date a photograph; the names will fade
on banners for the promises they made.

Elsewhere, a payment lands. A mother draws
her chair back to the table. No applause.
She puts her phone away.

The chain records the time, the sum, the fee.
It cannot hold the hour it has set free.