Shenli 100 Dollar Bill

One of my and Chyah Chyah’s friends from Shanghai, Shenli, recently came through New York, and we spent some time hanging out. Mainly shopping, to be honest.

Shenli is really cool. He’s an interior designer, and he has really good taste in design and music. Another of our friends, Daicheng, was also with him. I’m not as familiar with Daicheng, but he’s also a designer and a really cool dude. One thing that came as a surprise while they were here is their newfound enthusiasm for Bitcoin. After a bit of probing, it seems like Bitcoin and other forms of crypto trading have gotten exceedingly popular in China, despite the tightening grip of crypto legislature in the country, which is nothing short of a widespread zero-tolerance ban on trading platforms. Mining is also completely banned, following a few earlier years of hardcore mining, especially deep in China’s countryside where electricity prices are rock-bottom-cheap. I think the recent renewed crypto-fervor in face of the crypto-ban is related to people’s restlessness and the post-covid economic slowdown. It’s been extremely economically stagnant in China since about 2022, tons of people left the country, consumer spending went way way down, and the remaining keen urban 20-30-somethings like Shenli were left to mire in the mediocre economic prospects of a stagnant economy.

Suffice to say, China has a complicated relationship with crypto.

Anyways, one night we were out in Bushwick with Shenli and Daicheng. While switching between bars, walking down the street, suddenly Shenli was like “我操”. He bent over, and picked up a fresh 100 dollar bill off the ground.

Pretty cool thing to happen. How often do you literally find 100 dollars on the ground? In BUSHWICK!?

At the next bar, drinks were on Shenli, we immediately spent the 100 dollars on Mezcal-infused cocktails. Thanks Shenli.