There are many types of digital assets - coins and tokens, but there is also a handful of imaginary ones. Now, the Silicon Valley HBO series pulled a tongue-in-cheek publicity stunt with the PiedPiperCoin (PPC).
The coin had a complete profile similar to that of ICOs and altcoin on the Bitcointalk forums - only the team’s names were all fictional characters from the Silicon Valley show. The Bertram Gilfoyle character is listed in the team as Chief Systems Architect. Gilfoyle made crypto meme gold a few days ago, when his character spoke in defense of cryptocurrency.
Yet a lot of users had to do a double-take, before realizing that the CEO, Richard Hendricks, is also fictional.
The PPC symbol is also fake - actually belonging to Peercoin, one of the oldest digital assets that invented proof of stake for securing the network and distributing earnings.
However, in 2018, it is trivial to generate a digital asset - and there is actually a token called PiedPiperCoin. There are 21 million of those coins, exactly repeating the maximum number of Bitcoins, as if to prove a point that a digital asset can be scarce - and yet have no market price. Technically, the token can be airdropped, for a small gas fee, to those who would own it as a novelty.
https://twitter.com/piedpipercoin/status/994409039550394368
It is still unknown who is behind the elaborate prank, but it is starting to look like a promotional event for Silicon Valley, which saw its sixth season approved recently. At the same time, Silicon Valley is becoming a carrier of the message of crypto coins for the mainstream.
Besides its name, PiedPIperCoin uses ironic communication, adeptly repeating the lingo of the crypto community. The project even has a central idea which somewhat resembles other ICO projects - offering distributed computing, similar to the Golem token. However, none of the technology actually exists.
Prank digital assets are nothing new - and some, like DogeCoin, are in fact among the most successful. Others, like the Prodeum ICO, hardly hurt anyone, but used the hype around token sales to make a splash. The Petro fits the category of imaginary assets as well - the Venezuelan coin has several versions co-existing on the Ethereum network, but the actual coin may never materialize.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
