Chat, My Friend is a Literal God. What Do I Do?

Once again, Rippa had to replace her pinned X post. It was another recorded video of Buttons, but this time flanked by Goggles and Rippa’s VTuber avatar. In this video, the kid looked disappointed, as if her trip to Disneyland had been canceled.

“—so, since Goggles refuses to help me with the Enerjelly, Rippcoin won’t happen. Sorry to disappoint.”

Goggles threw an irritated look at the little kid before chiming in. “We will not do anything like that unless we have had thorough discussions with everyone and with proper international coordination.”

“So, yeah,” Rippa took over to close the announcement, “there is no crypto, and there will be no ButtonsCoin or GogglesCoin or Rippcoin. Any project claiming to be affiliated with either Buttons or Goggles, or even myself, is a scam.”

Rippa had had the presence of mind to lock the post’s comments down, which Mom and Dad said was a very wise decision.

She was still not getting it fully. Finance hadn’t been Rippa’s forte, after all. Everyone was telling her that the world had glimpsed an apocalypse, but… ‘Aren’t the Enerjelly and Rippcoin more solid than just arbitrarily printing money?’ She nevertheless got the gist of it when Dad showed her his retirement fund.

“Thank God, things are rebounding,” he said. Dad was, of course, upset that his retirement fund had tanked, but he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at Buttons. He felt as if he had just caught his clueless grandkid plucking unripened tomatoes in the garden. Yes, Rippcoin had rolled back his account, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It could still grow back. Besides, how could he be mad at Buttons when Rippa’s Q&A stream money had paid off a big chunk of the mortgage?

According to TV experts, Goggles saying no was the assurance the market needed. Things were bouncing back, but a full recovery would still be months away, if it were even possible.

Rippa forced herself through articles and news reports, trying to understand what damage her little friend had actually done. She thanked AIs for making things easier for her to understand. The billionaire Super Chatter BeenSalmon had also been very helpful. He gave a quick financial lecture to the members of Rippa’s Discord server.

“Didn’t you say you lost thirty million?” someone asked BeenSalmon.

“It’s bouncing back, so it’s OK. Just some pocket change,” he brushed off in public, but licked his wounds in private.

Yes, the market was rebounding, but the idea was now out in the open, and the system’s vulnerability, exposed. Commodities were now back in season.

Crypto bros were divided. Some rejoiced. They argued the kid had given the world a blueprint for a viable use case. The rest split into two camps. The first was quite mad that financial authorities now vowed to further tighten crypto regulations. The second camp was furious because Bitcoin and Ethereum had tanked big time. Nobody wanted to ‘hodl’ when Rippcoin was on the horizon. Despite her toddler-level knowledge of crypto, Rippa understood this immediately. Bitcoin was an enigma that was too… ‘What does it actually do?’ Rippcoin, on the other hand, was clear and legible.

EU bros were furious. Due to the time zone difference, they had been hit by the Rippcoin shenanigans minutes away from the day’s closing. Frankfurt and London trading floors had closed at the height of the panic, only for the EU traders to helplessly watch Buttons retract the whole idea, leaving them no way to buy back what they had just sold off until the next morning. The only consolation was that they saw the US market rebounding, which led to EU markets opening strong the next day. Nevertheless, the amount of hair pulled that evening could easily fuel the entire European wig industry for years.

It took some time and an intense Grok chat session for Rippa to understand why the European public condemned their leaders. Grok gave her three bullet points. The Dollar wasn’t theirs. Gas was Russia’s. They had shut down nuclear reactors. So, when a storm came, they suddenly realized their house was made of paper.

‘That sounds unfair,’ Rippa thought to herself. ‘Nobody could have anticipated Buttons.’ But then again, she had no idea how things worked in Europe, so maybe it wasn’t her place to comment.

Rippa, once again, had to talk to AIs just to understand why Russia was the least impacted. Basically, sanctions and stuff. In the US-led global finance system, Russia had effectively been on another planet. It had also helped that their stock market was closed at the time. Everyone around the world glared at the Russian traders, “Don’t you dare laugh. This isn’t funny.”

Apparently, however, the Gaz-something gas company had stayed up all night, having emergency meetings, answering calls, and repeatedly denying they had anything to do with the little kid’s crypto adventure.

Moscow, too, had a hectic night. The central bank tried to deal with the crazy exchange rate, and the Kremlin’s windows had stayed lit bright as the most powerful people of the biggest landmass nation tried to figure out how to deal with this sudden whatthefuckery.

The Kremlin eventually issued a statement voicing concern, objecting to any idea that undermined its sovereign authority over gas production and the Rouble supply. The rest of Russia, however, having slept through the chaos storm, woke up to the news and found the whole thing very amusing.

On the topic of China, BeenSalmon was met with jeers on Discord.

“You guys don’t get it. Whenever the Yuan flutters its wings, Walmart and Amazon ride a storm, and a few months later, your waffle costs ten cents more.”

Much to Rippa’s surprise, Beijing was also furious. She had thought China would be the biggest beneficiary of Rippcoin, and so would welcome the idea.

Again, due to the time zone, their stock market was sleeping at the time, so no big shitstorm. Besides, RedNote and Bilibili loved Buttons. So why were they mad? Well, the people on RedNote were kind enough to upload videos explaining why Beijing did not like the crypto idea. One, the same reason as Moscow’s. Sovereignty. Buttons’ Rippcoin project violated Beijing’s control over power production and monetary policy. Two, a high Yuan hurt exports. ‘Ah, that’s why people are saying Walmart prices would go up,’ Rippa finally understood. It was good then that the exchange rate was moving back, but, looking at the chart, it looked like a complete reversal would still take some time.

She also learned many Chinese exporters were super mad. Products they had already agreed to ship to America had suddenly become worth a lot less in Yuan, to the extent that the government had to scramble emergency relief for smaller businesses.

“Granted, exports are only about 20% of their GDP,” BeenSalmon explained, “but it’s still a big chunk. No wonder they are mad.”

“Huh? That’s lower than I thought?” Rippa remarked.

“See? Everyone just assumes, but no one actually reads real data.”

For that, he was called a Beijing shill on Discord, but that accusation quickly went away when he flexed another hundred-dollar Super Chat the next stream.

‘Hang on,’ Rippa wondered. Why not make things here, then? Or buy from some other countries?

***

President Dodson face-palmed. “So, they saved us?”

He didn’t like what he just heard. This was humiliating.

The Chinese had dumped their Yuan against the Dollar in order to slow down the Yuan’s moon-rocket climb. In doing so, they also had to gobble up the US Treasury bonds, which they had been offloading for years. A decade of carefully managed de-risking was rolled back overnight, on the whim of an eleven-year-old child. No wonder the Chinese were mad, but as a side effect, America was saved.

‘What a humiliation,’ Dodson thought. China ended up buying adversarial bonds they didn’t want to hold, and America now would be paying more interest to China. All things considered, a massive L for both parties.

Dodson looked around the room. ‘Really? An emergency Security Council meeting because of… a child and a crypto that didn’t even launch?’

It was absurd.

The UK Prime Minister was on a plane to Washington, D.C. The President of the European Commission and the NATO Secretary-General were also on their way. The House Speaker was waiting outside the Oval Office. The leaders of both parties were calling him nonstop.

It wasn’t about borders or ideologies. This was much deeper. Existential at a civilizational level.

His eyes met Gabby Talbot’s. The Director of National Intelligence nodded without a word. Next to her, the National Security Advisor followed. The Homeland Security Advisor grimaced, and then he, too, nodded in agreement.

“I’m sorry, this might sound a bit ignorant,” the Treasury Secretary broke the silence, “but does this Buttons kid actually do any… magic?”

Talbot cleared her throat. “As far as we know, no.” She looked around the room. “All evidence suggests she’s all talk—”

“But she’s three thousand years old!” somebody objected to that assessment. “And she made the body. Surely, that’s magic, right?”

“That’s what she says,” Talbot rebutted.

“Ah…”

“It’s all him, isn’t it?” the Pentagon chief interjected. “Sick bastard is playing ventriloquist with a pretty little doll, eh? Just like what he’s doing with that Pendrake girl.”

“Dunno about the sick part, but yes, Goggles is the one behind everything,” Ciceron chimed in.

“Speaking of Pendrake,” President Dodson addressed Talbot. “Any progress?”

“Yes, sir. The Brits found her credit card and are now digging through the bank account linked to it.”

“And Rippa?” asked Dodson, his fingers toying with a small Dooby3D keychain. It calmed him somewhat, so he tolerated Talbot’s disappointing answer.