NJ SKETCH: BITCOIN PITCH
ROMESHGood news for Bitcoin fans as a new study reveals that one in twenty people who've heard about the currency have used it to buy illegal drugs - which is exactly how the euro got started. And there's even a new ad campaign out to convince the rest of you...
PITCHPERSON: (UBER CHEERY) Are you sick of that change in your pocket weighing you down? Tired of handling grubby paper bills that can transmit common viruses like the flu? And ebola? Then maybe it's time you made the switch. To BITCOIN!
GRAMS
JINGLE) "Biiit-coin. It's the coin. That's not a coin."
PITCHPERSON: Here to explain it is Bitcoin founder, Satoshi Nakamoto...
NAKAMOTO: Leave me alone, you maniacs!
SFX: CAR DOOR SLAMMING, SCREECHING TYRES
PITCHPERSON: He's such a prankster. What he means is that Bitcoin is the exciting new alternative to conventional government-issue currency. But don't just take my word for it - listen to this typical housewife from the 1930s German Weimar Republic:
HAUSFRAU: (SCRATCHY AUDIO, GERMAN ACCENT) I am so sick of carting around this worthless paper money. If only there was a decentralized peer-to-peer alternative to curb this rampant inflation. Oh vell, I guess we'll have to find another solution to our economic problems.
SFX:FRENZIED HITLER SPEECH OVER LOUDSPEAKERS
SFX:CHEERING MASSES YELL "SEIG HEIL!" "SEIG HEIL!"
GRAMSJINGLE) "Biiit-coin. It's the coin. That's not a coin."
PITCHPERSON: If you act right now we'll even throw in your very own bitcoin wallet. It's not a real wallet of course. We just call it that to help alleviate your fears about transferring all of your life savings into a series of ones and zeroes without any form of official oversight. But wait - there's more! Did you know you can generate your own bitcoins? It's so easy anyone can do it. Even this average joe we found wandering Bletchley Park in the 1940s.
CODEBREAKER: (ADVANCED RP ACCENT) Our efforts to crack the enemy's enigma code may one day form the basis for a new type of currency transaction conducted on a vast network of interconnected digital machines, which could also be used for sharing electronic images of all the great artworks of the world, and to bring people together in virtual forums to have enlightened discussions about the future of Mankind.
PITCHPERSON: It's like printing free money. All you need is the intellectual firepower of a wartime codebreaker and more computers than a server farm in Bangalore. And it will require so much electricity you'll be helping the environment too. Helping it disappear, that is. So get yourself some bitcoins today, before they're all gone. FOREVER.
GRAMSJINGLE) "Biiit-coin. It's the coin. That's not a coin."
END