Comedy·BORECOIN

Man at party enters 27th consecutive hour of explaining cryptocurrency to room

Witnesses present at a Saturday night Vancouver house party report that for the past 27 hours, Troy Swansea, 31, has been delivering what several have described as “the monologue from hell."
(Shutterstock / David Pereiras)

There is virtually no escape.

Witnesses present at a Saturday night Vancouver house party report that for the past 27 hours, Troy Swansea, 31, has been delivering what several have described as "the monologue from hell" to a group of visibly uncomfortable partygoers he successfully cornered in the host's tiny kitchen.

"It began innocently enough," guest Sasha Blake whispers into the phone, crouched in the upstairs bathroom. Blake is one of the lucky ones who slyly escaped the conversation early enough to know the relative freedom she now enjoys. "Troy walked up to a group of people in the kitchen and was just casually like, 'What do you guys think of this whole crazy Bitcoin thing?'"

"But then, he pretty much immediately launched into a four-hour explanation of what he thinks of this whole crazy Bitcoin thing."

Party host Micah Seiderman says this is far and away the greatest number of instances of the term "digital assets" ever uttered in his kitchen.

As the people in the circle began to exchange exasperated sidelong glances at each other and resentfully shift their weight, Swansea seemed to take these cues as an invitation to stay on topic – just simply ramp up the deep, white-hot passion he clearly harbours about this issue.

"The next seven hours were devoted to Troy yelling about the importance of decentralization," Blake recalls. "You know, trying to win back the crowd."

At about the 13-hour mark, a woman trapped in the audience of this impromptu and nightmarish TED Talk managed to squeak out the sentence, "Does anyone need a drink refill?" in an attempt to save the group. Those who overheard her efforts are haling them as "valiant, quick-thinking, and brave."

While Swansea seemed to begrudgingly allow for a brief pause in the "conversation", the literal nanosecond everyone had refilled their red plastic cups, he pounced again like a young, ravenous cheetah patiently awaiting a herd of unsuspecting gazelles, re-opening with, "The long-term implications of using cryptography as a means to secure financial transactions is just staggering, guys."

Blake sighs, approaching tears.

"Their fatal error was that they just didn't move fast enough," she explains. "They had the tiniest window. It should have been: pour drinks, then get the hell out of the kitchen, NOW. But they lingered a moment too long. Why? It's likely they could taste liberation and were paralyzed with disbelief. But god damn it, if they'd just rushed their drinks to the living room. God damn it, guys."

Morale quickly began to plummet among the kitchen crowd. People grew hungry, drunk, and disoriented. Two men became so resigned that they lay facedown on the cold linoleum tile, dutifully continuing to listen to Swansea's breakdown of "the blockchain revolution, which really, is undeniable at this point, people."

Three relationships broke up, and one person passed away. Swansea took a brief moment of silence out of respect, and then began working his way down a list of 73 recommended documentaries about Bitcoin, plus 12 books, all of which he was inexplicably "partway through."

At the time of this writing, the party had ended a full day ago, and the host had long since left his home to go to work. Swansea however, was busy loudly tracing the history of cryptocurrency back to an early '80s prototype called "e-cash," using a complex array of spatulas and pots to visually support his explanation of how it worked.

Says Blake from inside a bubble bath: "The stupidest part of all this is that I've eavesdropped on all 27 hours and I'm still no closer to understanding what the actual hell a Bitcoin even is."

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