Brock Pierce Identified as 2017’s “Lone Tether Whale”
This article is satire and for entertainment purposes only.
Our reporters watched closely as Brock Pierce meticulously combed over the University of Texas’ Tether Report line by line, his face concentrated as he chewed his fingernails nervously. He was focused on one thing and one thing alone — making sure he got away with it. After what felt like an eternity, the “Hippie King of Cryptocurrency” closed his laptop lid and breathed a deep sigh of relief. “They don’t know it was me.” All at once the room erupted in celebration — streamers popped, confetti rained from the sky, and chants broke out, “Viva Puerto Rico! Viva La Brock!” Mr. Pierce had just escaped being exposed as the sole whale responsible for the biggest financial pump in human history.
That evening was the craziest night Señor Frog’s of San Juan had ever seen. Hundreds of American expats stormed the streets like modern day conquistadors, determined to celebrate the exoneration of their fearless leader. So how was it that Brock got away with it? Why were all these unemployable hippies celebrating? And how did Coin Jazeera find themselves in Puerto Rico reporting on the most cunning Crypto luminary the world has ever known?
Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone
It was 2013 and Brock Pierce appeared like a magic act out of thin air. There were no wasted movements as he effortlessly entered the Bitcoin community like a time traveler who knew exactly what to do, each one of his corporate moves executed with absolute precision. With no prior experience in Cryptocurrency he effortlessly began his saga by founding Crypto venture capital firm Blockchain Capital. This meteoric success instantly launched the enigmatic Mr. Pierce into a leading public figure in the Bitcoin community overnight. By 2015, Brock Pierce was sitting as Chairman of The Bitcoin Foundation, an after-school Model UN club for actors role-playing as people of importance in Crypto. This newfound clout had now armed Mr. Pierce with the respect of the corporate Bitcoin community and the social proof he needed to complete his master plan — the same plan that found our reporters down in Old San Juan on that fateful night.
Brock Pierce is the Forrest Gump of Crypto. He somehow finds a way to be involved in every major moment of History. He’s always in the right place at the right time. Plus he’s really good at ping-pong.
Archimedes Love Phoenix (Camp Decentral)
This exalted position of power enabled Brock Pierce to swoon every nerd in the Bitcoin community, including none other than J.R. Willett, the inventor of the ICO scam and founder of Mastercoin. Excited to work with an actor from The Bitcoin Foundation, Mr. Willett met with Brock and after some brief discussion over cheese pizza and hot dogs, renamed Mastercoin to Omni Layer and made Brock a co-founder of his protocol. Omni Layer allowed for the creation of tokenized assets on Bitcoin — which our reporters should have known right away was a scam as we all know Bitcoin isn’t supposed to do anything other than be slow and boring.
This power partnership paved the way for the savvy Mr. Pierce to begin his ultimate plan, the creation of what he called a “stablecoin,” which is a stable way to offshore wealth (as those hiding money aren’t fond of volatility). The stablecoin project was set to be called Realcoin and built on the Omni Layer. Everything was full steam ahead, until all their work came to a screeching halt after Brock learned that notoriously trustworthy Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex was working on a similar stablecoin idea called Tether — which unlike Realcoin was actually real. Without a moment of hesitation, Brock immediately abandoned the Realcoin project to convince Bitfinex to partner and make him a co-founder in the Tether stablecoin, splitting the ownership with the burgeoning exchange. Brock Pierce had now secured an inside connection into what would evolve into one of the most prominent Cryptocurrency exchanges on Earth. He now had the relationships and the power to ask the executives at Bitfinex to do whatever he wanted, including cover his tracks. This set Mr. Pierce on course to use both Tether and Bitfinex to become a financial legend and the most clever Crypto whale the world had ever seen.
Photo courtesy of Cryptodigest
I wanted to make the world a better place by enriching myself and my friends. It’s so outside of the realm of self-interest that you wouldn’t be able to understand.
Brock “Modern Day Robin Hood” Pierce
Back in Old San Juan the bell tower clock rang twice. The time was now 2:00 AM. Drugged up on alcohol, MDMA, Ketamine, LSD, and churro dust, most of the original group had wandered back to their Burner Yurts, passed out on the street, or ended up in some sort of strange polyamorous cuddle puddle. Our reporters found themselves all alone with Brock Pierce back in his study, a rare quiet moment for Crypto’s most powerful man. He poured us two glasses of his finest port, continuing to regale us with the story of how it all went down. Finally, exhausted from the evening’s festivities, he relaxed into a majestic upholstered armchair as the fireplace crackled nearby. “Really dodged a bullet there guys. Who did you say you worked for again?”
Photo courtesy of Hughes Entertainment.
With all the pieces now in place for Tether and Bitfinex, Brock Pierce was well on his way to becoming the legend that we know today. He swiftly created a shady bank (the only kind there is) in San Juan, Puerto Rico known as Noble Bank which would hold the Tether stablecoin “reserves,” supposedly to be backed 1-1 with the US Dollar. By conveniently owning and operating this bank, Brock had complete financial anonymity, as well as the power to print Tethers at will. With no regulatory oversight these imaginary Tethers could be created without the necessary dollars to back them and then immediately used to buy Bitcoin and pump the price all the way to Valhalla.
Mr. Pierce daftly printed the Tethers from the ether and used it to pump the price of Bitcoin increasingly higher whenever it fell below certain thresholds. When the price of Bitcoin hit its all-time-high of $20,000, Brock went on to Bitfinex to open up a 3.3x leveraged short, pulling the rug on the Tether printing, and sending Bitcoin crashing down 90%; causing the largest financial bloodbath the world has ever seen.
“Photo courtesy of The Dark Knight”
Back in Puerto Rico, upon realizing that he had been confiding his accomplishments in Coin Jazeera reporters, Brock Pierce dropped his glass of port and exclaimed “Shit!” What then began was something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Our reporters were literally chased out of Old San Juan, our undercover moles had their Act 22 statuses revoked and are now financially ruined after having to pay three years of back taxes, and our dearest veteran reporter Pepe Grenouille was captured and MK Ultra’d to now believe in the benefits of ethical polyamory and non-violent communication. It was a complete disaster.
Back in San Francisco, our reporters needed a decompression week to process what just happened. We reluctantly accepted that Crypto was all Brock’s game and we were just his pawns. We can’t help but wonder if his entire financial scheme was simply vengeance for not being cast in the upcoming Disney+ reboot of the Mighty Ducks TV series, and that he now desires to become rich enough to buy Disney and cast himself as a 38 year old kid hockey player for the upcoming reboot. We guess there are just some things that we’ll never know.
UPDATE 11/17/2019: After publishing this article we received an email from Binance exchange CEO, CZ, who was disappointed in us for our journalism. “Some things are better left unsaid. We are actively working with Mr. Pierce and Bitfinex to bend the truth for the good of our industry. We don’t want the SEC to expose Crypto for what it really is and block our only shot at a Bitcoin ETF and making this thing real. Next time keep your mouth shut.
This article is satire and for entertainment purposes only.