by JC Collins
Sounds.
Ocean. Waves.
Birds’ overhead. A woman’s voice in the distance. Somewhere far off.
Where am I? Here. Sitting on the beach. The waves come in and wash over my feet, bringing in the new and pulling out the old. Ripples in the sand. How long have I been here? Minutes? Hours? Days? Surely not years.
The hands in front of me are old. But not as old as I expect them to be. How old am I? What year is it? Something tells me it is 2061, sometime in that translucent period between Halloween and Christmas. But you could never be sure anymore. Time was something that mattered less nowadays.
The woman’s voice was gone. That makes me sad. Who was she?
Standing, I walk down the beach. It’s a beautiful day. Almost perfect. There is anticipation about me now. But it’s good. Something is going to happen. Something I’ve been waiting a long time for — something extraordinary.
It’s coming back to me. It has been a while since I was here, and I needed to descend back into this world. Was I running from something? Maybe. Searching. After ascending to that other place, I needed the real world again. The wet sand between my toes feels good — the breeze on my face.
Memories from a past time come back to me. Forty years ago. That was another extraordinary time. It was a time when everything changed. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was a writer. God, I had loved to write back in those days. The magic of putting words together and weaving a spell over the reader’s imagination was the greatest of gifts. As a child, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I had been for the better part of my life.
Back in those days, I did a lot of writing for CasinoCoin. It was the most amazing of times. The world was on the edge of change. We didn’t know it then, but we were building the worlds of the future. During those last few months of 2021, so much was happening. It was hard to capture it all. Sudden shifts followed periods of stillness. Everyone was excited, and no one knew what was next.
Everything was new, which required a lot of education for those joining the CasinoCoin space. Eventually, there would be hundreds of millions, even billions, but back then, we just needed to assist people in understanding the technology and the evolving ecosystem. That November, CasinoCoin brought on such an educational partner. It was someone who had broad industry alliances with well-known brands in the crypto space. The benefits to the growing CasinoCoin community lasted a generation.
While all of that was happening, the CSC asset was added to the D’CENT Wallet. I remember writing a blog for it then on the same day as now. The D’CENT Wallet was a hardware wallet with a phone application. Do you remember phones? Funny now, thinking about it. But this phone and hardware wallet combination provided the next level of security that was needed back in those early days. But the real beauty of the D’CENT Wallet was that it allowed for the interaction with the Songbird and Flare Networks, which included Flare Finance and its suite of decentralized financial products.
CasinoCoin was a member of the Flare Finance family of digital assets, and during the final weeks of that year, the whole ecosystem was launched on the Songbird Network, with CSC as one of the core assets. People didn’t realize it then, but this was the spark for so much that was to come in the following years. Nothing was the same after.
The CTO of CasinoCoin back then was Daniel. Daniel was a German, but we all liked him regardless. Daniel led CasinoCoin through its darkest hour, and its success became an obsession. An obsession that took a toll on Daniel, about which most knew nothing. Bringing on Jack to handle marketing added additional hardships, but nothing Daniel couldn’t manage through the HR department.
Exploding the life he had known in Germany, Daniel moved to the Isle of Man that January after a lot of planning and delays. But in hindsight, even with all the trials and tribulations, and Jack’s constant insolence, it was the best thing he ever did and was undoubtedly the best thing for CasinoCoin.
Exchanges were a challenge back in those early days as well. Some listed CSC earlier in the year, while others were swamped with long lists of development tasks. The whole space was on fire, and everyone from exchanges to wallet developers, and the asset teams themselves, could barely keep up with the workload to meet the growing demands. Through it all, though, some of the large exchanges did work through the implementation of XRP Ledger assets. In hindsight, it was but a speed bump.
The most exciting event back in those closing months of 2021 was the launch of the CasinoCoin Lobby xApp. In development all that summer and fall, the Lobby was the ultimate objective of the CasinoCoin project. The Lobby was the interface between the CSC network and the hundreds, even thousands, of online and virtual Casinos that would ultimately use CSC. The Lobby was still in beta testing during that first week of November, but more players were added. The Lobby was 100% integrated with Casinos, and the final polishing of the app was taking place. There was an explosion of utility after its launch. The echo of this can still be heard in the world now, forty years later.
Which world? The above or the below? The real or the simulated. Does it even matter anymore?
It’s weird, memories, those things which were real but are no longer. Can we remember things that were never real? What is real? Perhaps real exists in the space where wave and shore meet — the place where I walk now.
On this very day, forty years ago, the new CasinoCoin website was launched. Websites, do you remember those? Both phones and websites were replaced. But back then, the new CasinoCoin website was a breath of fresh air and provided a clear road map on the project’s successes and upcoming milestones. The written blogs were hereafter added to the website and no longer existed as a stand-alone blog. Adding blogs to the new website was necessary because there would be even more significant announcements throughout that November. Announcements that I have only whispered about in the spaces between these words — the spaces between wave and shore.
The spaces between worlds.
Whispers.
Wind.
Ocean.
Someone was whispering in my ear. “Come back. Come home,” it was saying.
“We miss you, and you are loved.”
It was the voice of the woman I had heard earlier on the beach. But where is she? Looking around and I couldn’t find her. The world seems less real now. The birds were gone, and the sound of the waves became dull and muted. The wet sand between my toes was thick and heavy like clay.
Something extraordinary was about to happen.
Something extraordinary is happening.
Her voice was sudden and unmistakable.
“Jared.”
“Baby?” I asked.
“Jared, take my hand. Take it. Come back to me.”
A warmth tightened around my old hand. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. I am here.
Something extraordinary happened.
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