Written by Sifan Tu
Illustrated by F. G. Rice
At No. 1 Dream Exchange, all sorts of dreams are being offered and purchased. You can find any dreams imaginable here: large ones, small ones, living ones, dead ones, ones told in sequence, ones told in reverse, belligerent ones, caring and elegant ones, fried ones, hard-boiled ones, ones wearing cat-eared housemaid suits, or ones that smells like soap bubbles or lemonade soda. You name it.
In the beginning, people traded dreams directly with dreams. However, as purchases of larger quantities emerged, the need for some form of currency became urgent. However, within the local constellation boundaries of the No. 1 Dream Exchange, nothing is of any values unless it exists in the form of dreams. Hence the currency for trading dreams itself must also be dreams. In the end, one of the Accounting Masters got inspiration from a dream full of encryption algorithms and invented the blockchain dreams. All the stores, pawn shops, casinos and other businesses of the Dream Exchange quickly followed suit and developed their own business models.
Blockchain dreams are literally blockchains made out of dreams. At each node a random string of chars is generated and used for seeding different dreams. Each of these dream nodes in turn contains a pointer to the previous dream narrative. If any single node on this chain is modified illegally, the entire story chain would break. According to the definition from the initial designer, the entire story chain consists of the most boring soap opera in the whole universe. It is not until the twenty-eighth digit after the decimal point that the plot entropy of each node starts to vary. It is exactly due to this high homogeneity that the blockchain dreams can qualify as currency.
Some authors don’t agree on the significance of homogeneity. They have hence created dream currencies with no homogeneous parts involved. They have even introduced sidechain technology into the consensus. They developed their version of blockchain dreams under Creative Commons, so that there won’t be any controversies over copyright infringement. By this time, the blockchain dreams are no longer a mere type of currency, but a continuum of literary treasure. As the plotlines are solely the outcome of generative algorithms, some critics hold that the story itself is taking over the role of an author. The blockchain dream has become a living being that can grow on its own, forming a symbiosis with algorithms and mining ASICs.
Not all natives of the No. 1 Dream Exchange are born accounting experts, as this would require a proficiency across hundreds of areas including mathematics, linguistics, literature, astrology, philosophy, art, information theory, sociology, anthropology, psychology as well as cosmic political economics etc. Most natives are only multi-majoring in seven or eight fields. After graduating from the educational organizations, they strictly follow the division of labor in society, and enter the Dream Exchange to work in the unit of squads.
Education and division of labor ensure class fluidity, yet this does not apply to the Accounting Masters. The Masters live reclusive lives, and hardly appears in front of the public. In the recorded history, there are only a few times that the Accounting Masters showed up. Other than the tales about genesis of blockchain dreams, another rather well-known story happened during an interplanetary warfare that almost destroyed the Dream Exchange. Back then, a general from the Western Reach of the Galaxy Empire realized that an economic entity as huge as the No. 1 Dream Exchange does not even have any military units. He then decided to raise an army and tried to get a hold of the Exchange. In response, the Exchange sent out an Accounting Master, who was a child shepherd that herded sheep in her dreams. The exhaust flame of the empire fleet disturbed the shepherd’s slumber. Hence, she walked out of her bedroom and taught her apprentices how to deep dive into other’s consciousness. When the night came again the Accounting Master fell asleep in the embrace of an ewe once more. Yet the consciousness of the imperial soldiers was blocked from themselves. Their eyes were covered with grey films, and they locked their general up. Under maneuver of a secretly implanted device driver, the entire fleet set off and flew over the edge of the galaxy. They were never seen again. From then on, the Exchange has gained its reputation all over the universe, and obtained a status that few else dared to challenge.
However, the universe is so wide that it is essentially borderless. There are always reckless contenders that struggle in vain to achieve their craziest dreams. One that had the most potential was a collector. He had so much wealth that it could fill the Sombrero Galaxy up to its brim, and his ambition was as tall as the Pillars of Creation. The collector was a vigorous one. Even at old age, when he suddenly came up with the idea of collecting the entire blockchain dreams, he immediately set off and constructed a whole set of strategy, which is weaved out of mergers and acquisitions, exports and imports, as well as economic monopoly.
The collector was not a man of no wit and rationality. He knew the boundless power of the Accounting Masters, and therefore he put out a bounty that invited the mind safety experts from all over the universe to build him a security firewall. The bounty was very lucrative, granting the beneficiary enough money to purchase almost half of the Exchange. Such high prize has lured even the newly entitled Accounting Master himself. One day he left in secret and went over to the museum planet where the collector dwelt. The Master taught him a mental firewall that even the Master himself could not crack. The firewall has the shape of amber and would not be dismantled unless unlocked by the owner themselves. Even until today, tourists can still find this amber on the sunken plaza located at the center of the Exchange. The collector spends his final years within this amber, gawking from inside towards the deep divers walking by all around him. He has not disabled the protective mantel even until this moment. Now, we will end our introduction on the test subject here and start diving practices. Those of you who wants a challenge, please form a line here and give it a try, one-by-one.
