The Hollow Coin: Part 1

The Rooftop

Dax Mercer stood on the edge of the rooftop pool, bare feet on glass tile slick with condensation, a tumbler of mezcal in one hand and his phone in the other. Below him, Austin flickered like a hard-drive light—neon signs, LED billboards, electric cars silently gliding through shadow. A drone dipped close to the edge, paused, and zipped away. He didn’t notice.

Bitcoin had just touched $187,900.

He didn’t cheer. He didn’t need to. He just exhaled through his nose and typed:

"Told you. $250k before solstice. To the f***ing moon."

The tweet posted beneath a selfie of his bare torso and a pair of mirrored sunglasses, the skyline behind him warped and shimmering. Within seconds, the replies started pouring in.

“KING.”

“Never selling.”

“Diamond hands forever.”

“Stay poor, fiat cucks.”

Dax sipped the mezcal. It burned all the way down. He liked that. Burn meant real. Burn meant now.

He wandered toward a daybed where two startup founders were arguing about decentralized real estate tokens and laughing too loudly. One had a lightning bolt shaved into the side of his head; the other wore a necklace made from a melted Trezor wallet. A woman in a bodysuit shaped like a QR code handed him a vape. He hit it without asking.

Below them, the city hummed like a mining rig—restless, hot, overclocked.

“$200k by morning,” someone said behind him. It was Lena, the girl from Solana Beach, the one who got rich off meme tokens and kept her private keys etched into a silver bracelet. She curled up next to him without asking. Her skin was cold from the pool, but her grin was wide and wet.

“You think?” Dax asked, watching the number flicker.

“No. I know,” she whispered.

Every word, every breath, tasted like inevitability.

In the distance, lightning arced behind the hills. Dry thunder followed. Someone mistook it for fireworks.

A voice came from the bar: “ETF rebalance just hit. Still buying. Still buying!”

Cheers erupted. Dax laughed. He tapped open his exchange app. All green. He stared at the total, then at the skyline.

"Not selling," he said aloud. No one had asked.

Because why would he sell?

The future was here. The system was crumbling. Fiat was dying. They were the architects now. Gods with burner wallets and seed phrases tattooed inside their thighs.

Nothing could go wrong.