In death, there’s life: a concept contemplated for centuries by mankind and contained loosely within various cultural images and stories. A beautiful example is the ouroboros which pictures a twisting serpent drawing life blood from itself, the never-ending cycle of creating something new while sacrificing something precious.

Serpents and crypto share this uncommon, unfortunately. Life must be sacrificed to create something new and crypto demands blood. Humans, more specifically gamblers, fuel crypto, yet we proceed despite it. The serpent needs its time, attention, and resources to feed its growth but remember… the head eats. Become a builder, building something truly important because the head of the serpent gets fed.

While meditating on the connection between ouroboros and my participation in crypto, I identified some places where it affects my spiritual health, particularly when gambling.

Meditating on my feelings while participating in crypto has allowed me insight into where my life force is flowing, specifically when shitcoining. I’m at the tail, trying to feed, while being fed on, an extremely precarious position for my blood. The head, ironically is not the other gamblers near the tail but the entire serpent growing because of me.

Crypto has a weird mechanism to invert a gambler’s position in the serpent from time to time, and move them closer to the head, it’s called an airdrop. From there it’s up to the gambler to aid in its growth or be complacent, as the head continues to eat away at its body, returning to the tail.

Unfortunately, most gamblers don’t know about the ouroboros at all, they never stop to see it. They believe that there is life in the act of gambling, and sometimes they can cut off a chunk of serpent for themselves, to enjoy in another place, although rare. Convinced they will receive life from their actions they continue, but the serpent demands blood... lots of it.

So I pondered, “Is it possible to be a gambler in this cycle by deriving life somewhere else, something higher, something truly meaningful from my life? Can I escape this cycle while still participating in it? Or is the ritual of shitcoining too desolate of life to not swallow me whole?

Maybe I can find life through spiritual pursuits, a spouse, family, community, or something else but I need to tread carefully. This serpent demands blood and without acknowledgment, it might demand more life than I can give on my own

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