The year is 2069, and any assets that hold meaningful value have been digitized and moved onto the blockchain.
Since the inception of NFTs in the early 21st century, Solana NFTs have continually increased their utility and popularity and now command a dominating 75% of the global equities market. Due to a steadily inflationary USD and Solana’s market dominance, $SOL recently hit $1,000,000 USD per token and took over as the new global currency.
It has been a little under 10 years since The New Regime took over as the leadership in United States. Leading up to the 2060 American Presidential election, America had been in a steady economic decline for decades. It all came to a head mere months before the election, which is now referred to as “The New World Order”. Weeks before the election, the quarterly national job report showed economic numbers worse than the great depression. America had hit rock bottom.
To no one's surprise, the government pointed fingers at artificial intelligence and machine learning when trying to assign blame to the epic economic collapse. However, it was the government that sat idle and failed to regulate both industries for decades. Blinded by their seek and destroy mission against blockchain technology, the government ignored the robotics industry which has remained unregulated for many years and ultimately wiped out the middle-class job market.
Due to the current state of technology and rising crime rates, most of the wealthy folks have left the major cities and migrated to more rural areas – more secure areas. As living conditions in the urban centers continued to deteriorate, a trend called reverse gentrification started to pick up steam in the mid 2040s. This trend would ultimately lead to the New Regime naming these large inner city ghettos, “The Districts”.
However, it hasn’t been all bad as there have been many groundbreaking technological leaps, maybe none more significant than neuro-connect. With a simple surgical procedure, surgeons are now able to make a small incision and attach a neuro-connect chip to a host’s brain. The revolutionary technology has increased learning speeds by 2 orders of magnitude. Recently, they started implanting the chip into pets, so it’s not uncommon to see a dog or cat walking on their hindlegs and speaking English like humans.
In the year of “The New World Order”, the American people’s frustration hit a breaking point after continuous failure by the previous two political parties to properly regulate robotics and blockchain technology.
Leading up to the election, a new political party named “The New Regime” (TNR) emerged and dubbed themselves “The leaders of the New World”. They embraced new technology and promised a better future for every single American. The slogan “A Better Future” was enough to catapult The New Regime into a majority government. Sadly, for the everyday American any hope of a better future quickly vanished after TNR took power.
In their first months in power, TNR began aggressively implementing arbitrary and oppressive laws, specifically for those living inside the inner city district neighborhoods. At one point, TNR launched a program called “Hall of FUD” that allowed officials to search through online content as far back as 2018 for posts containing fear, uncertainty, and doubt towards NFT technology.
To name and shame the FUD posters, government officials forcefully attached an electronic collar on these individuals that displayed the type of FUD they had posted years prior. Unsurprisingly, this unconstitutional action was met with major protests. After months of civil unrest, the TNR switched their focus and began a campaign of collaring the pets of the past FUD posters.
Although every District has its own unique features, they all share the same social economics conditions. There are no jobs. There is no government support. There is a lot of crime.
Most of the infrastructure inside The Districts is in desperate need of repair. It isn’t uncommon for the streetlights to be out for months at a time. Shop owners began using battery powered neon signs outside their establishments to attract patrons but also assist in lighting the city.
Most of the youth living in The Districts leave home early and are left to fend for themselves. Pets are no different, especially in their advanced cognitive state. The government labels these stray pets as “lost dogs” and “lost cats” but, that’s not very accurate because most lost pets aren’t looking to be found.