End Times Economics From a Reptilian Cult
By: Tony Russo
Tags: Sherry Shriner, Conspiracy Theories, Dogecoin, End Times, Cryptocurrency

End Times Economics From a Reptilian Cult

The editor’s correction said, “It’s Dogecoin, not Dog coin.”

This was 2019 or so, and I hadn’t heard of Dogecoin before, so “dog coin” made as much sense as anything else. I was reproducing a story from a Facebook chat I found among the evidence in Barbara Rogers’ murder trial. Barbara was accused of killing her boyfriend, Steven Mineo.

That she pulled the trigger is almost undeniable, whether or not she was responsible hinged on the couple’s feud with an internet cult. I’d come across the Dogecoin conversation in my research into what would become a book about the whole affair, and although the story had to be cut from the book, I think it provides insight into the weirder side of cryptocurrencies.

Just as with the wonderful tale of the Bigfoot Chewies, the “dog coin” story didn’t really move the narrative and only made a convoluted story feel a little more oblique. Also, I didn’t want to apply the breaks just to explain cryptocurrencies (as far as I understood them).

I’m not going to do it now, either, except to say that cryptocurrencies are alternative methods of payment not backed by any government or bank. Dive deeper here if you wish.

People worry that cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin facilitate criminal behavior, and I don’t doubt that there are some really dark uses for it, but I want to tell you about a bizzarre one: I might have been the last person on the planet to know that the “Doge” of Dogecoin was a meme dog, a Shiba Inu who had taken the internet by storm more than five years before.

The Prophet, the Acolyte, and dog coin

Steven Mineo was one of the early adopters of a cryprocurrency openly based on a joke internet meme. A little more than 45 days before his death, Steven was friends with Sherry Shriner, the cult leader who would drive him over the edge and then to his grave. As a friend he wanted her to get in on “dog coin,” and signed into her private Facebook chatroom to explain the pros (he presented no cons) of investing in cryptocurrancies.

Steven Mineo, the 32-year-old man-child who worshiped an internet prophet and tried to live off the grid was a suburban survivalist type, all gear and no skill, but he had a leg up on me when it came to alternative cryptocurrencies. He had a leg up on Sherry Shriner, too.

“I just don’t understand that stuff,” Sherry told him. “Not a money person.”

Steven didn’t understand it in any meaningful way, either. What he did know was that you could buy them on Ebay and have them deposited into your virtual wallet.

Sherry told Steven that Bitcoin, the first and still most popular cryptocurrency, was too expensive at $900 (today that coin is worth more than $50,000, calling her status as a prophet into question).

“I got 6,000 dog coins for like two or three dollars and now it’s $14, it’s worth,” he told Sherry and the rest of the people in the chatroom. His investment was worth $17 by the end of the conversation. It’s worth more than today if you’re curious.

There’s a weird tension between the speculators, the true-believers, and the doomsdayers who invest in cryptocurrencies. Speculators hope to make money on big price swings, and true believers see crypto as a liberating technology that also can be used as money. Doomsdayers, prepers, and other anti-social types have a different angle altogether.

The Economic Reset

Their interest is almost exclusively related to a conspiracy theory called NESARA, or the economic reset. The short version is that one day the government will declare all money worthless and close the central banks, clearing everyone’s debt and starting the economy from scratch.

You can see the appeal for a doomsday investor. They buy cryptocurrencies so when the big financial crash finally occurs they will be elevated to billionaires, and we’ll all be sorry we made fun of their asinine belief in the economic reset.

NESARA is also tied in to end times prophesy as one more way God will know his true people and more efficiently separate the wheat from the chaff.

That is the future they crave, that fuels them; a future where they’re elevated from meaningless cogs to masters of the universe. The mechanics of it is hazy, but here is the doomsday case for cryptocurrencies as I understand it.

Something catastrophic happens to the government and the economy collapses. Martial law is instituted. Power-grids fail, there is open rebellion in the street, mass death, starvation, and disease. If you have cryptocurrency, though, you will still be able to buy and sell goods, bribe officials, and hire armies if you want.

As with so any other parts of conspiracy theory living, investing in crypo takes something that’s new and complicated and misunderstands it as a sign the world is ending.

It’s a baffling craving, but let’s set it aside for now. Instead let’s occupy the mind of a person who believes in his heart that he’ll get cell service after society collapses. That Verizon employees will be maintaining the infrastructure between their nightly marauding runs in search of one last drop of gasoline.

As laughable as it is, it doesn’t make less sense than any other end times Christian prophesy based on the Book of Revelations. Today, the idea of litaral horsemen and actual trumpet-blowing seems a little, well, primitive. It is convenient then, that even Bible literalists allow for symbolism when it comes to the apocalypse. By those lights, people can interpret War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death more broadly.

The most striking thing about investigating truthers and conspiracy enthusiasts is discovering that their stories are the same Christian stories I learned as a child, only amplified and stretched to accommodate and abiding fear of technology and change.

What I love most about the crypto tie-in is the salvation aspect of it. If you’re prepared for the coming of the lord, you will be saved (you’d be hard-pressed to find a Christian who disagrees). For people like Steven Mineo, though, that promise doubled over on itself into something even more grand: Not only will you be saved if you’re ready for the end of the world, but if you’re ready for the before part of the end of the world, if you accumulate enough money and power, you’ll be saved here on Earth as well.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to sit, feet up, as the people who mocked your beliefs burned, safe in the assurance that you had enough Dogecoin in your virtual wallet to literally get you through the apocalypse?