The Great Reversal

In 2052, you watch, heart racing, as house payments, grocery store purchases, and micropayments between friends are all reversed on the blockchain.

Anarchist hackers, after weeks of cryptic threats, began reversal of the Ethereum blockchain.

Convinced the blockchain has done more harm than good, the hackers mercilessly launch the malicious program coded hand-in-hand with some of the most expensive AI the world has to offer which first slows the blockchain before stopping transactions full halt.

Then, the incredible happens: the blockchain starts reversing transactions. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the Ethereum blockchain starts to backpedal transactions over days and weeks like peeling hardened amber entrapping a prehistoric fly. Sales of cultural masterpieces are returned to their previous owners as buyers suddenly find ETH spent reappear their wallets.

Your own purchase of a Chromie Squiggle is sent back to its original owner, losing you hundreds of ETH in value while returning scraps to your wallet.

Sweat gathers at your brow as news channels begin reporting "the Great Reversal."

National security sessions are called in Congress. The President is briefed daily on updates, implications, and action steps. The Ethereum Foundation seems to be at bureaucratic standstill in this time of emergency.

The years are progressively wound back. University degrees are retracted from graduates who received soulbound tokens. Concert tickets return to performance venues to sit idly in deployer wallets. Art circles back to artists who created the work.

But the hackers couldn't reverse the entire blockchain.

Despite their technological prowess, they failed to account for a user's first transaction on the network and the resultant deletion of a wallet in its entirety. The reversal begins to halt at first transactions across the blockchain.

Late adopters howl in pain at the economic wasteland facing society.

You, an early adopter, look in awe at your first NFT. Looking at the NFT, all the memories of your first transaction come flooding back to you: is my money just going to disappear? How does this even work? Why does the fox’s face follow my cursor?

You lost track of it: your first step into a wild world which you fell in love with.

But upon seeing it again, a reassuring warmth pours over you.

You smile, reminiscing on a simpler time when so much excitement came from such a small transaction.