#4 Newsletter
Should the bunker be under neutral ground?
Recently, I arrived at Zurich Airport once again on my way home. When you walk through the baggage claim to the exit, you are welcomed on large screens with a “Welcome to Crypto Nation Switzerland” or optionally “Welcome to Crypto Valley”. Initiated by the Crypto Valley Association. This is interesting for today's fourth making-of-newsletter, because I am constantly looking for a place to locate my bunker. A concrete bunker for the crypto world?
Well, I absolutely need it for my plot, because these crypto or digital nomads require large storage rooms or halls for their digital archives and their large high-speed processors. A bit like large safes of old-style banks. And where could it be safer than under large Swiss mountains? Deep under the earth of neutral, stable and safe Switzerland, including water powered electricity for the computers, in particular their cooling systems! Crypto is hot stuff, so to say.. 🔥
How do I find the best venues for my fictional plot – especially if you do the writing “part time”: Through travel, observation, coincidence, imagination, through google research, through reading, so through everything together, preferably! I check, for example, every hotel where I stay for “usability” for my books. Every view, every street, many scenes. That may sound as if I could not relax, but it is the opposite.
I also like to move a venue to a different place, where it suits better into the plot: in my book Bad Banker, for example, I moved the chip shop of ex-banker Thomas Brausse from the financial district in Frankfurt to the impressive fountain of Lake Geneva: the scene is called “Pommes à la Fontaine”. In reality, by the way, I had presented my Bad Banker at Brausse’s shop below the Messeturm back in 2010. The journalists enjoyed it, including the Currywurst after the press conference.
Thomas Brausse & Markus Will (Picture: Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Or take Zermatt, another example: I went there years ago with friends to go hiking and saw these beautiful "Maiensäss” above the village, little barns for the summer. Zermatt is a great secluded, but also quite “spaced out” town at 1600 meters altitude in the mountains with a real Bahnhofstrasse of extravagance, luxurious hotels and an enchanted old cemetery. So, I put my observations, a few coincidences and my imagination together to create a stunning location - all of which can be found in my books Bad Banker an Dark Banker.
"Maiensäss" (AI-generated image)
Now to my current project in making: In “Mr. Tresident” part of the plot will revolve around the new “cryptic world order” - people who want to cryptate a new form of life. How real is it? Just have a look into this article:
➡️ 🗞️ The Rise Of Bitcoin-Only Community And Event Hubs Around The World
All around the world Bitcoin-only hubs emerge such as PubKey, a NYC pub, where cryptonians meet for beer & Co. The sheer fact that Donald Trump had a beer at PubKey is a nice little evidence of reality meets fiction. And the fact that Trump supports the idea of a crypto reserve currency is not sheer, but rather glamorous – and frighting, not the least the crypto community too!
Kraken, one of the most successful and real cryptocurrency brokers, fully remotely and decentral organised, estimates in its Blog 60 million crypto or digital nomads by 2030 – around the population of France. The vision of some of these cryptonians is to have their own crypto currency at least, perhaps their own decentralised cryptonation with their own cryptoarmy? Maybe on their own crypto planet?
➡️ 🗞️ Kraken's workforce: Forever remote-first
Absurd, fictitious, but not completely out of space. In any case, the Libertarians dream of it. And Elon Musk’ SpaceX would build the rockets for them. But for the time being, all this has to be controlled from earth, and this is best done from a hidden bunker deep in the underground. And which country probably has the most bunkers in relation to its population? That's right: Switzerland! You can buy some of them! And where is the Crypto Valley? Right: in Zug, in the middle of Switzerland!
I know the area a bit, can do research on site, but whether there are bunkers and where they are located is of course beyond my knowledge. The good thing about a fictitious crypto bunker in Switzerland would also be that it would be located on neutral political ground. This is almost as good as have the command center somewhere in space.
Image Source: House Of Switzerland (left) | Mount10 (right)
There are many ideas of what such a bunker could look like underground. It's easy to get inspiration from pictures on the internet. For example, the so-called "Swiss Fort Knox", an underground data center with the highest security standards. But there are also bunkers as luxurious underground hotels, which are partly above and partly below ground. Absolutely breathtaking and a great inspiration for my plot.
In two weeks it will be a more real life: in the run-up to a reading at Easter, I want to write about what it's like to meet your readers at readings...
All the best,
Markus A. Will