LUXEMBOURG-VILLE — In a testament to how hot this technology is, an unknown entrepreneur walked into an empty meeting room in Kirchberg and said “blockchain” — and suddenly he was surrounded by dozens of people throwing funds at him.
When asked why he had sprinted there from an office down the street, one fund manager said that blockchain is transforming the way we get excited about concepts such as “hash function” and “distributed ledger” — concepts that we don’t actually understand.
“From an investment standpoint, blockchain appears to be a very solid bet,” he said. “Blocks are strong. Hell, they used blocks to build the pyramids 3000 years ago and they’re still around. And chains, well, who doesn’t appreciate the reliability of a steel chain? I used one to pull a horse trailer 800 kilometers, and it never broke, not even once.”
Another recent arrival to the room, a private investor from Frankfurt, explained why he had decided to go to Luxembourg the moment he read in an investment blog that someone here had uttered “blockchain.”
“There’s something thrilling about investing in a technology that seems to energize even the most serious and prudent types, people who would normally have a portfolio of mostly real estate and bonds,” he said. “Like me, look, just thinking about blockchain gives me the power to fly.”
As he leaped off the table and fell with a thud onto the floor, a third attendee explained her jubilance.
“I was standing outside, waiting to catch the bus to go to ADEM, when I heard someone say ‘blockchain’ and I was like, hey, I’ve heard about that,” she said. “I’m nearly broke, but I’m sure I can sell my last pair of shoes to scrape up a few euros to invest in blockchain.”
“That’s the same thing as Bitcoin, right?” she added.
According to reports, after collecting enough money to purchase a Porsche Cayenne, the entrepreneur then spent the rest of the morning driving around Kirchberg saying “blockchain” through a megaphone. By noon, he had collected upwards of six billion euros and was managing one of the largest blockchain, digital currency, and crypto asset funds in the world.
