Bitcoin Tattoo
This is Day 2 of the “Twelve Days of Sci-Fi”. You’ll get a free story each day. You can also get a discount on sci-fi stories for next year.
Brielle kept her eyes closed as the Blackdot machine buzzed in a low thrum. The sound felt meditative. The robotic arm followed the pre-determined guide to etch the ink into her skin. She saw the final result slowly coming into shape: a crisp QR code which would map to her primary Bitcoin wallet URL.
The idea had come to her one night while reading about new robotics on her RSS feed. She loved open-source tech and the flexibility it gave her. Even her phone was assembled from open-source modules and running a fork of Android to offer unprecedented access to her own hardware. To her, decentralized technology and individual liberty were important above all else.
“Almost done,” Ashton murmured as he continued to supervise the machine.
“Perfect,” her voice was full of conviction.
She’d spent a few weeks designing the tattoo to ensure it would last a while even in different lighting and angles. The error correction code would need to withstand a bit of fading and the address pointed to a server owned by a local co-op which had low transaction fees and gave her physical access.
This whole venture was about freedom from intermediaries, leveraging the blockchain to its maximum potential. With a simple flick of the wrist she could pay for her Boba, contribute to a local community fund, or transfer money to a friend. It would turn her body into a symbol of that freedom, linking her to that decentralized future.
The machine then whirred to a halt and the arm retracted.
“Give it twenty-four hours to set,” Ashton said, handing over a small dermal patch.
Brielle grinned and flexed her wrist. The code was crisp and the dark ink contrasted very well against her skin. She was ready to become, quite physically, a part of the future.
Brielle showed off her new tattoo to Selim as they met in The Sprout, their local go-to for coffee. This morning they were drinking fresh beans from Costa Rica, fair-trade obviously. She sat on a stool made from recycled wood and held her hand to the light.
“Look at the visibility at all these angles,” she rotated. “That Blackdot has great precision. And look, now I’ve got total sovereignty over my money. I don’t need to have chipped cards anymore. Just a quick scan and my Bitcoin is transferred.”
“It’s bold,” he answered, the kind of person always hesitant about the newest technology.
“It’s the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if even you got one soon.”
“But what about security? Isn’t having your wallet address permanently visible sort of like dangling your house keys near the front door?”
“It’s not the private key, just the address. It’s easy enough to see someone’s Venmo but that’s not insecure. My funds are behind my multi-factor auth. It’s probably more secure than Venmo. This is the real future, giving us back control over our money”
“Brielle? Two Geisha lattes?”
Their order had been called.
“I’ll show you,” she hopped off the stool and came to the counter.
She extended her left wrist and presented the QR code to the optical scanner embedded in the marble countertop. A green light passed over the tattoo.
Instead of hearing a pleasant chime confirming the payment, there was a frantic beep. She looked down to see “Payment Declined — Insufficient Funds”.
“That can’t be right. These coffees don’t contain gold!” she quickly pulled out her phone with her trembling hands.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she opened up her Bitcoin wallet app. It began spinning. She looked at the status bar. Her signal was not especially strong. Every second of waiting felt like forever.
Then she saw her balance: *0.00000000 BTC*.
Below that were a series of recent transactions, none of which she’d made.
Transaction: -0.05 BTC to [Unrecognized Address]
Transaction: -0.12 BTC to [Unrecognized Address]
Transaction: -0.08 BTC to [Unrecognized Address]
Transaction: -0.20 BTC to [Unrecognized Address]
There were dozens of them from the last few hours to addresses she didn’t recognize.
Selim quickly paid for the coffees with his card and helped guide Brielle to a seat. Her tattoo had somehow compromised her wallet and she could barely function as the dread enveloped her body.
Over the following days, she scanned the comm logs, blockchain explorers, and open-source forums. Her usual confidence had faded as she struggled to track the phantom transactions. This unknown hacker had used a zero-day on a popular decentralized exchange which had managed to masquerade as her login. Her cold storage backup was apparently warmer than she thought.
She returned to using credit for the time being. Every time she tapped to make a payment she felt a deep sense of failure, that her belief in decentralized finance had been weaponized against her. And every glance of her tattoo brought her more shame.
She found herself returning to the same tattoo parlor she started from, tucked between a brewery and a bike shop. Ashton was there as usual with his long silver hair wrapped in a ponytail.
“Brielle, how’s the new tattoo?”
“It’s... I lost it Ashton. All of it. I got hacked.”
He grabbed her wrist gently and traced the perfect dark squares of her QR code. He looked at her without judgment.
“There’s a certain impermanence even in the permanent,” he said with sympathy. “You have put so much faith in these invisible structures, like networks and clouds. But even they won’t last forever. The currents of water shape the land, creating new pathways. My ink changes too. You become a living piece of art, one that is meant to change.”
Brielle tried to understand what he meant. The digital permanence she’d believed in no longer seemed correct. Her idea of individual liberty might have been wrongly focused on digital transactions. Maybe it was more about the ability to adapt to changes in the ever-changing world.
“That’s a very interesting idea. But what about this?” she asked. “I can’t keep looking at it. It’s driving me mad.”
He examined her wrist as if it was a detailed work of art.
“I can try. The Blackdot machines are precise, but are not designed to make small adjustments. And a QR code can easily become useless if I change a single square. But maybe the point is to embrace this change.”
Brielle looked down at her wrist again. If it was just completely removed, it felt like deleting her beliefs. Even though there was a clear flaw, it didn’t make sense to throw out her entire worldview because of one incident.
“If I use a new wallet, one that is multi-signature... I could require approval from three independent devices... it’d be more secure. Maybe add something else too, to remind me that nothing is truly permanent.”
“A new story then,” Ashton smiled. “The ink will tell a story of growth. I think I know what to do.”
He started grabbing tools from a drawer, choosing a fine needle and an earthy green pigment that was manufactured locally.
The process took much longer than the Blackdot machine, and hurt far more. Ashton moved deliberately, pinpricking Brielle countless times and forcing her to let out a sharp exhale. He carefully traced new lines and shifted a few key squares to create a renewed pattern which would link to her new, more resilient wallet.
More important was the new artwork surrounding her QR pattern, consisting of long bamboo shoots and small circuit board traces. He wanted to fuse nature and technology to serve as a constant reminder to Brielle of the importance to not forget the real world.
Several hours later, he was finished. Brielle’s wrist was a bit swollen and red but she could see the final result and was pleased. The tattoo lacked a clean, pristine look, but the organic details seemed to better reflect a more complex, freer world.
“My experiment with the future of technology was not without its risks, but it gave me a great understanding of the limits of technology. Individual sovereignty is important for a free society, but we also need to have a social responsibility to build more secure and more resilient systems.”
She was presenting at a local open-source meetup. After her talk, she had a lot of interested viewers came up to her, wanting to see the tattoo and learn more about her vision for the future.
Her talk included a call for digital literacy, and for local meetups to go beyond teaching tech but understand its limitations and improve them. She wanted to spend more time on this effort and share the community resources to protect everyone.
Each day that she came to the community center after work, she tapped her password into her laptop and looked down at her wrist as she touched the trackpad. It reminded her of her failure, but how even failures gave someone the opportunity to grow into something better.
There are new machines now that are like printers but for tattoos. I’d like to see what kinds of new tattoos can be created with it.