TheCorporateCounsel.net

I swear, I try to take crypto seriously – I really do. I mean, there are trillions of dollars being invested in it and lots of smart people think it’s the future.  But it’s hard not to be dubious when so many of the crypto schemes I’ve seen people touting remind me of either the South Park underpants gnomes or episodes of the 1990s cartoon Pinky & the Brain.  Last time we visited the world of crypto, we discussed a public offering of NFTs by a piece of conceptual art in corporate form. I didn’t think we could top that one – until I read this article about a DAO that’s pursuing a project that’s even more “out there”. Meet BitMouse DAO:

A new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) wants to genetically engineer mice so that they carry Bitcoin inside them. BitMouseDAO launched on January 25. As of this writing, it has exactly two investors, almost no money, and no Discord. One investor, who put in .01 ETH, commented “Lmao,” while the other who put in the same amount said, “crazy.” The scheme, according to the DAO’s pitch, is to experiment with genetic technology to put Bitcoin inside a mouse.

The anonymous mind behind this project claims to be an artist who got the idea as they were going to sleep one night. They jotted the idea down and began to ponder its possibilities. “Over the next few weeks I started looking around to see if it was possible to carry out the experiment,” theys said in a blog post. “I was excited to imagine how this would affect us in the future.”

After namechecking artist Eduardo Kac’s genetically engineered phosphorescent rabbits, BitMouseDAO then rambles about how cool it will be to make a living thing into literal money. “We have tied the value of the mouse directly to Bitcoin, and it will fluctuate with the daily value of Bitcoin,” they said. “Maybe in ten years it will be worth $100 million, or maybe it will be worth nothing.”

I guess the way this is going to work is that the DAO will pay to have scientists figure out a way to edit the mouse’s genetic code to carry the private key that controls the bitcoins. Why would they do that? Look, don’t ask me. I’ve read the article and I still don’t know. Maybe you should check with the underpants gnomes or – since this is all about genetically engineered mice – the folks behind Pinky & the Brain.

– John Jenkins