Customer: Good Morning.

Owner: Good morning, sir. Welcome to the Cryptocurrency Emporium!

Customer: Ah, thank you my good man.

Owner: What can I do for you, sir?

C: Well, I was sitting in the public library on Thurmon Street just now, skimming through 'The Bitcoin Standard' by Saifedene Ammous, and I suddenly came over all libertarian.

O: Libertarian, sir?

C: Cypherpunk.

O: Eh?

C: (in a Yorkshire accent) 'Ee I were all Satoshi-like!

O: Ah, Satoshi Nakamoto!

C: In a nutshell. And I thought to myself, 'a little digital gold will do the trick', so, I curtailed my bitcoin standardising activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some CoinMarketCap listed comestibles!

O: Come again?

C: (in a Yorkshire accent) I want to buy some crypto!

O: Oh, I thought you'd come to complain about the harpist!

C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Euterpean muse!

O: Sorry?

C: (in a Yorkshire accent) 'Ooo, I like a nice tune, 'yer forced to!

O: So she can go on playing, can she?

C: Most certainly! Now then, some crypto please, my good man.

O: (lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?

C: Well, how about a little Ethereum.

O: Oh, I'm afraid its gone from difficult to impossible for us to sync our full node to the Ethereum blockchain, so we no longer deal in it, sorry.

C: Oh, never mind, how are you on Litecoin?

O: Well, back when Litecoin's creator Charlie Lee sold all of his holding, we lost confidence and decided to not hold any either...

C: Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, four units of Monero, if you please.

O: Ah, privacy coins! With all the 'Know Your Customer' regulations they're a legal minefield, so unfortunately...

C: It's not my lucky day, is it? Er, Cardano?

O: Sorry, sir.

C: Siacoin?

O: Normally, sir, yes. Today, its cloud storage got hacked.

C: Er, Zcash?

O: Sorry, privacy and KYC again.

C: Nano? Decred?

O: No.

C: Any Binance Coin, per chance?

O: No.

C: Stellar?

O: No.

C: Ripple?

O: (indignantly) This isn't a bank, sir!

C: TRON?

O: No.

C: IOTA?

O: No.

C: Dogecoin?

O: (pause) No.

C: NEO?

O: No.

C: NEM?

O: No.

C: B.Gold, B.Private, B.Diamond, B.Rhodium, B.Cash, B.Cash SV?

O: No.

C: Tether, perhaps?

O: Ah! We have Tether, yessir.

C: (surprised) You do! Excellent.

O: Yessir. It's erm... it's a bit scammy.

C: Oh, I like it scammy.

O: Well,.. It's very scammy, actually, sir.

C: No matter. Fetch hither the cryptocurrency that's tied to the fiat US dollar de la Federal Reserve, s'il vous plait! Mmmwah!

O: I...think it's a bit scammier than you'll like it, sir.

C: I don't care how fucking scammy it is. Hand it over with all speed.

O: (searching under the counter) Oooooooooohhh........! (faint meow, pause)

C: What now?

O: The cat's eaten it.

C: (incredulously) Eaten what?

O: The dollars that were backing Tether, the cat's eaten 'em, chewed 'em all up!

C: (pause) Has he?

O: She, sir.

(pause)

C: Tezos?

O: No.

C: VeChain?

O: No.

C: JP Morgan Coin?

O: (impersonates Andreas Antonopoulos) That's just a SQL database over-engineered with blockchain technology. That's not a real blockchain. That's a sequence of poor engineering decisions!

C: Mimble Wimble Coin?

O: Afraid not, Trace Mayer and his alias "airdropluigi" have cornered the market.

C: Verge?

O: No, sir.

C: You... do have some crypto, don't you?

O: (brightly) Of course, sir. It's a crypto shop, sir. We've got-

C: No no... don't tell me. I'm keen to guess.

O: Fair enough.

C: Er, Beam?

O: Yes?

C: Splendid, I'll have some of that then please!

O: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mister Beam, that's my name.

(pause)

C: Komodo?

O: Er, not as such.

C: Steem?

O: No

C: Stratis?

O: No

C: Aurora?

O: No

C: Factom?

O: No

C: Cryptonex?

O: No

C: MaidSafeCoin?

O: No

C: Venezuelan Beaver Coin?

O: (clears throat) This is a family business, sir. We don't sell tokens for (does air quotes) "adult services".

(uncomfortable pause)

C: Ah, let's keep it simple, how about Bitcoin?

O: Well, we don't get much call for it around here, sir.

C: (disbelievingly) Not much call--It's the single most popular crypto in the world!

O: Not 'round here, sir.

C: (slight pause) and what IS the most popular cryptocurrency 'round 'ere?

O: (enthusiastically) DASH, sir.

C: IS it.

O: Oh yes, DASH has been heavily marketed in this manor, squire.

C: Has it.

O: It's our number one best seller, sir!

C: I see. Er... DASH, eh?

O: Right, sir.

C: All right, I'm game. 'Have you got any?' He asked, expecting the answer 'no'.

O: I'll have a look, sir.. nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.

C: It's not much of a crypto shop, is it?

O: Finest in the district sir!

C: Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.

O: Well, it's so clean, sir!

C: It's certainly uncontaminated by blockchains.

O: (brightly) You haven't asked me about EOS, sir.

C: Would it be worth it?

O: Could be.

C: Have you... (irate) WILL YOU SHUT THAT BLOODY HARP OFF!

(Joanna Newsom looks sheepish and stops playing)

O: Told you, sir!

C: (slowly) Have you got any EOS?

O: No.

C: That figures. Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place....... Tell me:

O: Yessir?

C: (deliberately) Have you in fact got any crypto here at all?

O: Yes, sir.

C: Really?

(pause)

O: No. Not really, sir.

C: You haven't?

O: (unashamedly) No sir. Not a single UTXO. I was deliberately wasting your time.

C: Well I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to shoot you.

O: (seemingly unconcerned) Right-O, sir.

(The customer takes out a gun and shoots the shopkeeper)

C: (disappointedly) What a senseless waste of human life.

< Fin >