Shiny City

- By Chio
Imagine a city where everyone is in their own little home with shiny valuables hidden around inside.  Everything is locked and everyone protects their home the best that they can against anyone who would want to take from them.  They rarely leave their homes but are perfectly happy inside with plenty of things to do and can freely keep-in-touch with any of the friends they have.

Every so-often, a new shiny thing will fall from the sky at a completely random point somewhere in the city.  Some residents have young boys and girls who constantly run around the city looking for any new shinies that have dropped.  The faster the kid, the more likely they are to find this new shiny thing and pocket it before anyone else.  They all get along with each-other though, and there are no feuds between them as they know it is just their duty to find these shinies and nothing else.

Every day, the runner-kids will return to their owner and give them any shinies they may have found on their shift.  They don’t work for free; however, and require a meal every now-and-then.  It’s not an expensive meal, but an owner with many runner-kids who has to keep them all fed can add-up and, sometimes, the shinies they collect are not enough to cover expenses.

Sadly, runner-kids do not last forever, either.  Newer, faster kids, are always joining the city who are able to collect more shinies then the older ones.  So, these older kids are often sold away to another owner or, often, another city all-together to live-out the rest of their days.  This is usually ideal for them, as their new homes do not require them to run around so much and are much gentler on them.

So the cycle continues.  Runner-kids collect shinies around the city and bring them back to their owner.  They are eventually sold-off and replaced by a younger and faster kid who can do their job better for a-while.  The owners continue to collect and hide their shinies around their home where, hopefully, nobody else can find them.

At-least, the kids who are sold off have a better and more comfortable life.
Fun Notes:

- This is how my uneducated brain imagines crypto-mining to be.  :p