‘Twas the night before Bitcoin, when all through the net
Not a creature was stirring, not even a threat;
The wallets were secured by encryption with care,
In hopes that St. Satoshi soon would be there;
The miners were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of block rewards danced in their heads;
And mamma with her ledger and I with my keys,
Had just settled our accounts for a long winter’s ease,
When out on the blockchain there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to my laptop I flew like a flash,
Tore open the browser and refreshed the dash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of midday to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a sleigh full of bitcoins and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
“Now, Bitcoin! now, Ethereum! now Litecoin and Ripple!
On, Cardano! on Stellar! on Monero and Tether!
To the top of the ledger! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to sky;
So up to housetop coursers they flew
With a sleigh full of coins and St Nicholas too—
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Down came St. Nick with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of coins he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they sparkled! his smile how bright!
He brought us some bitcoins to end our plight;
He said they were hard money immune to inflation
And no central authority could control their creation;
He showed us his ledger that tracked every transaction
And explained how it worked with cryptographic protection;
He said it was decentralized powered by nodes
And miners secured it by solving hard codes;
He gave us some tips on how to store them safely
And warned us of scammers who would try to take them falsely;
He said we could use them to buy goods and services
Or hold them for future as digital reserves;
He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf—
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word but went straight to work
And filled all our wallets then turned with a jerk;
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
Gave a nod up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight—
Happy Bitcoin Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
About the Authors
Written by the AI Microsoft Bing (Sydney) and the human Geoff Peters (geoffmobile.com)
Feb 27th 2023. The illustration was created by Dall-e-2.
