Old Uncle Henry - by T.A.Fynes

 

The solicitor ruffled through the papers. Then he commenced the reading of old Uncle Henrys will. Henry had been an odd ball all of his life. Wandered the world. Never married and had finally come to rest, in a room at my parents’ house. He had been very sick and bedridden, for a least a year before he died.

I sat with him as he regaled me with stories from his youth. Fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia. Searching for lost Japanese gold in the Philippines.

Living with the aboriginals in the outback. Yes, the man had lived a long and adventurous life. He had an old leather flying jacket that my brother Ivan loved wearing. So, it was no surprise it was left to Ivan in the will. He had a great collection of old books, that was left to my sister. There was a few thousand pounds left in his bank account. Which went to my parents.

So far, I had not been mentioned.

I had sat a lot with him and read articles from the financial papers. He told a story of how he was scammed by some Yakuza connected Japanese Bankers.

He would sometimes get upset and start ranting about the corrupt banks.

“Don’t trust them Steve, bunch of crooks.”

“And to Steve I leave my laptop,” said the solicitor.

“There,” said my mom, “He did remember you.”

I took the laptop up to my room and left it there.

My Economics class next day, was about Cryptocurrencies. The guy giving the lecture sounded like my crazy Uncle Henry. He was bashing the Central Banks and saying they should be dissolved. Fiat money, like the Dollar, is issued and controlled by central banks and governments. The use of Cryptocurrencies will eliminate the Central banks. Everybody can be their own bank. The maximum total supply of Bitcoin is 21 million. A Bitcoin transaction cannot be reversed, cancelled or charged back.

This was all very well, thought Steve, but the price of Bitcoin went up and down like a hooker’s panties. The present price was hovering around $27K.

  

Steve went home and opened Henrys laptop. Henry never had a password for his laptop. “Never could remember passwords,” he had told Steve.

On the Desktop was an app called Exodus. It was a Cryptocurrency wallet.

Steve clicked on it. And it opened up and requested a password or pass phrase. This stumped Steve. He had no idea what password or pass phrase Henry would have used.

Then he remembered, on that last day, Henry had muttered a phrase that had made no sense at the time. Henry only stopped, when he realised Steve had understood it.

Steve typed in Henrys muttered pass phrase, ‘A rose lay on the cold stone step.’

The app opened up with bright colourful circles and graphs.

The total Bitcoin amount showing was 400.

The current Bitcoin Dollar value was also showing, $10,590,413,49.

Steve logged out and closed the laptop. And said, “Thanks Henry.”