Landing an internship shadowing Vitalik Buterin felt like hitting the jackpot at a crypto casino. My brain was buzzing with visions of deep dives into zk-SNARKs, elegant consensus mechanism debates… You know, the big-brain stuff.
Then Day One, 8:03 AM arrived. Reality? Tasted like lukewarm oat milk. Smelled like existential dread.
Optimizing coffee gas fees like a noob
8:03 AM: Vitalik suddenly appeared by my cheap IKEA desk (which he probably bought when ETH was $10). He zipped away, saying, “Coffee run? Get my usual. And don’t overpay fees!”
My mission: Buy coffee without getting ripped off by Ethereum’s annoying “gas fees” (like delivery charges for crypto).
I opened the coffee app. Pay with ETH? Sure. Fee options? Low = Might arrive by Christmas. Medium = Costs a week of instant noodles. High = Might as well mortgage my future NFT collection.
I picked “Medium” and prayed. Waiting felt longer than waiting for your phone to update.
I handed Vitalik the coffee like a sacred relic. He sipped it. “Hmm… slow transaction. We’ll fix your ‘finality’ later.” (I pretended to understand, but I guess he meant the coffee took too long).
Butt-tweeting Ethereum price predictions
10:17 AM: Vitalik was teaching me rocket-science-level blockchain stuff. My brain melted.
BUZZ. My phone lit up. I BUTT-TWEETED FROM MY POCKET:
“Just overheard Vitalik Buterin humming. Sounds bullish. ETH to $4,500 soon, maybe? #VitaliksIntern #DYOR (but trust me?).”
Panic mode activated. Crypto Twitter exploded. Memes of me as a fortune-telling gerbil flooded my feed.
Vitalik saw it, raised an eyebrow, and muttered. “Interesting Ethereum price prediction. Crypto prices jump around.”
I just wish the floor would open up and swallow me whole, or just drop me into the Genesis block.
Attempted manual gas fee slashing
1:45 PM: After lunch (a sad salad paid for with crypto pennies), Vitalik groaned at his screen: “Fees are crazy high again. Too many people are using Ethereum.”
My intern brain, fueled by caffeine and a desperate need to prove I’m not just a walking FUD factory, has a brilliant idea. “Can’t we just… slash them?” I mime a dramatic karate chop. “Manually? Like, right now?” Vitalik stares.
Vitalik stared at me like I’d suggested fighting a volcano with a spoon. “The network,” he said slowly, “is controlled by everyone. No single person can just… chop fees.”
I nodded hard. “Right! Permissionless chopping! Got it!” (I still have no idea what that means). I’ll make a mental note to Google that later. Pretty sure it involves validators getting punished, not interns making karate moves at server racks.
Proof-of-spill protocol
3:30 PM: Disaster Strikes. I’m carrying Vitalik’s super-important notes for his next Ethereum Proof-of-Stake upgrade (they look like ancient treasure maps covered in diagrams).
I tripped over a loose internet cable. Notes flew. My full coffee did a perfect swan dive… right onto the “Finality Gadget” page. Coffee soaked the words “Casper FFG” into a brown blob.
“Proof-of-Stake… SPILL!” I whispered, horrified.
Vitalik rushed over. Stared at the stain. Picked up the soggy paper. “Hmm… this coffee blob… looks like a new type of crypto token mixed with staking rewards?”
My brain: Is he joking? Brainstorming? Having a crisis?
The accidental token standard fueled by panic
4:15 PM: Shaking, I typed up the salvageable notes. MY FINGER SLIPPED. Instead of typing “ERC-4337” (a real tech thing), I typed “ERC-404.”
I described Vitalik’s coffee-blob idea: “A new token where the spill pattern creates partial ownership… but it might ‘evaporate’ if unused?”
I ACCIDENTALLY EMAILED IT TO THE WHOLE RESEARCH TEAM.
CHAOS ENSUED:
“ERC-404?! Vitalik approved this?”
“Partial coffee stains? GENIUS!”
“Next meme coin?!”
Developers started coding “ERC-404” tokens. Meme coins named $SPILL and $LATTE launched instantly.
I’d accidentally invented a viral crypto trend.
Vitalik reads the email. He looks at the stain, then at me, then back at the stain. He sighs, a sound carrying the weight of a thousand hard forks. “Well… that’s crypto innovation. But recreating coffee spills on-chain might use too much ‘gas.’”
Got paid in Polygon-minted tears
6:00 PM: As I tried to sneak out, destroyed, Vitalik stopped me: “Today was… something. You think differently. Messy, but creative. Like a new crypto network with hiccups.”
He handed me a digital cartoon coffee cup NFT (like a rare collectible) with a tiny chainlink bracelet. “Proof of Internship. Minted on Polygon. Low gas.”
It’s my most valuable possession.
Epilogue: My proof-of-internship” NFT
My cringe-tweet lives forever in memes. The “ERC-404” token I accidentally created is weirdly popular. My coffee cup NFT is priceless.
I’ve learned that in crypto, big ideas sometimes start with a clumsy intern, a rogue internet cable, and a perfectly disastrous latte.
Pro tip: Check those transaction fees before you carry the boss’s coffee near billion-dollar plans.
Trust me. Bro!
(P.S. This didn’t really happen. I’m just a regular person covered in crypto confusion, dreaming about interning with a genius. But let’s be real: if I were handed that lanyard, that is how it would truly go down.)
