Fifty-two, a school-bus dispatcher in Ohio, she had posted eleven times in the token's Telegram before 9:40 a.m., all of it in defence of a coin she'd bought at $0.14 with the transmission money. Anyone expressing doubt was on someone's payroll. She typed "follow the money" four times before lunch, and each time it landed like a verdict.

The rival channel, forty thousand strong, was doing the identical thing in the identical font about a nearly identical coin, and she had never opened it once. Her son-in-law asked a mild question at Easter and was out of three group chats by Tuesday. The coin closed the year down ninety-one percent. She did not sell. Selling would have proved them right.