Island Life Characters

The Island Life story starts in October of 2020 on an island inspired by a particular British overseas territory with a fictional cast of characters. The following is a little backstory and analysis of the major characters:

Alice

Alice was born in 1980 in Tirana, Albania. When she was 20, she met and married Aleksio Ahmeti an older successful buisnessman from Durrës. Alice lived with Aleksio in old Durrës and every year they took a cruise around Greece and Italy. After Aleksio died unexpectedly in 2017, Alice took a longer cruise across the Atlantic and through the Caribbean. Since then, every March she has flown to Barbados for a two week cruise with her favorite ship and crew.

On her March 2021 cruise, Alice used AOE to buy US$200 of CCC from Charlie. Why? Partly because of some insecurity Alice has about using her credit card in 13 ports in 14 days. AOE isn't a useable form of payment most places, but acceptance is growing, and the app helps Alice find things to do and make reservations more easily than trying to get islanders to answer a phone.

Bob doesn't keep a regular schedule, he's usually at Eddie's when the launch lands at Sandy Ground, but not always, and sometimes when you arrive at Eddie's, Bob has run out of goat. AOE told Alice not only that Bob was there but also that he had plenty of curry goat ready. AOE let Alice "ping" Bob to let Bob know she's on her way. When Alice arrived, Bob had already set up her plate with a side of sugar apple. AOE knew Alice was at Eddie and Bob's place, so it presented her the menu of available choices there and also at the clothing store across the street: Island Threads.

Alice selected one plate of Bob's Curry Goat on AOE and authorized payment of 1301 Albanian lek worth of CCC for it. Bob's AOS was advertising a price of 1 BCG, Charlie's AOI was offering 1 BCG for 12 CCC, Alice's AOE had 135 CCC available so Alice's AOE assigned 12 CCC to Charlie's AOI in exchange for 1 BCG, then Alice's AOE assigned that 1 BCG to Bob's AOS and he thanked her for her patronage and handed her one plate of curry goat with sugar apple on the side.

After she had a few drinks at Eddie's, Alice decided to check out Island Threads and she finds an adorable dress for EC$99. Island Threads accepts CCC and ZIC directly as cash equivalent so the store's AOS proposes an assignment of 37.77 CCC which Alice's AOE shows her as 4092 Albanian lek worth of CCC, leaving her 12,484 lek remaining in CCC after the proposed assignment. Alice authorizes the assignment, and wears her new dress as she leaves.

By the time the Odyessy returns to Barbados, Alice only has 27.68 CCC remaining in her AOE. She forgets to cash them out with Charlie before she leaves the ship. She has another cruise booked and Charlie will probably be there, if not she could try to settle with him over e-mail, but she's not really worried about 3000 lek. On the next cruise, she buys 500 CCC and has about 120 left over at the end. That time she did settle with Charlie in cash at the Purser's office on the last day.

Alice already had AOE installed on her phone because back home in Durrës Yllka's crazy coffee club had been using AO shares since 2019. Alice made a small, early 10 cup investment in YKK and watched her shares double every 6 months or so. In early 2022 while Alice was dabbling with AO-Eye, planning her next cruise in the Caribbean, she was surprised to see an ASK of 18 YKK for 45 CCC. Alice went ahead and traded 18 of her now 150 YKK to get the CCC for her next cruise in March. It turns out that Jonida, also from Durrës, had just been to the Caribbean and returned home holding a few spare CCC. Instead of trying to dig up Charlie to get cashed out, Jonida got on AOI and entered the ASK. Alice had some spare time, so she tracked down Jonida - the trading records showed her as a regular customer at Yllka's on Tuesday mornings. Jonida is a very open person, she included a photo of herself in her AOE profile, and Alice easily spotted her entering Yllka's the next Tuesday. Alice flagged her down and they had a wonderful conversation about their cruises.

Bob

Robert Banks was born on the island in 1970. As a boy, he liked to catch goats for fun. Later, he played bass guitar in a few bands around the local islands. He also would occasionally catch goats and trade them to a local butcher for some goat meat for his family. In 1995 he took some courses at the community college in food preparation and guest hospitality, it was around this time that he and Rita got together and had their first daughter: Sharon. Bob tried working as a chef for some of the local restaurants for a few years, but the schedule was a bit much for him, he preferred to be more of a free spirit. By 2000, Bob and Rita were married and they had their second daughter: Karen. Bob played some bass guitar, occasionally would pick up work as a cook, until finally one day in mid 2015 he got the idea for a grill cart. Not just some rusty old drum, but a shiny fancy propane smoker grill that would be visually appealing and cook great food, on big fat wheels so he could move this big beast of a grill around the island, even on the beaches. By now, Bob and Rita had the house by the Valley, and Bob spent over a year building that grill-cart out back.

So, in November of 2016 Bob's grill cart made its commercial debut at Eddies place down Sandy Ground, and nobody came. Bob played bass with the band at Eddies for awhile, and Eddie handed out Bob's grill menu to bar guests. Guests started ordering the food, Bob would put down his bass and cook it up for them. After a couple of weeks the band had to find another bass player. The guests would rave about how great Bob's grilled curry goat was, and when word got back to the ship Bob had a steady stream of customers. He and Eddie agreed to keep their businesses separate, Bob would sell the grill plates and most of his customers would sit down in Eddies' for drinks and music.

Grill cart business was so good for Bob in early 2017 that he built a stout concrete house for his cart in the back yard early that summer. Good thing too when Irma made landfall with 185mph winds in September. Tourism was hit hard in the 2017-2018 season, but Bob's grill cart was ready for business as soon as the roads were clear enough for him to get around with it. Bob didn't just sell to the guests, there were plenty of folks working the cleanup who appreciated some fine curry goat after a hard day's work.

Business down Sandy Ground was very boom and bust, with lots of bust after Irma. So, Bob would wheel his cart around to where business was good for him. But, getting up George Hill with that heavy cart was a problem. Bob could usually find help when he needed to get up the hill, but he hated to always be asking favors. He and Dave hatched the idea of putting an electric motor on his cart, but the price for the motor and battery was almost as steep as the the road up George Hill. At first Bob found it easier to ask for favors getting the cart up the hill.

In October of 2020, Bob broke the ice for small-business blockchain on the island. For Bob, his blockchain got him some cash when he needed it, like a micro-loan, but instead of promising to repay cash, he promised plates of curry goat. Later on, when small-business blockchain started catching on, Bob was able to trade BCG for his spices and even propane, and he could get cash more easily when he needed it for other things in exchange for BCG instead of needing to find customers for his cooked goat. Bob may not be a restaurateur with commercial real estate and a bunch of employees, but he does know what he is doing. Bob has taken classes to learn about his trade, and has a good reputation with his customers. Through his BCG blockchain, not only can Bob advertise all of this, but his potential customers can verify what he claims, even before they set foot on the island.

Bob uses the AOS app which guides AOE app users to his current location, when he's open for business. Bob still isn't thrilled about carrying a cellphone all the time, but Rita loves it. At first, Bob only accepted BCG as payment. Later, he set up an AO-Eye which would sell BCG to anyone at any time, including when they were standing at his grill-cart. He set his own discount/premium rates for other issues, not only ZIC and CCC, but also DBR and a few other local businesses that he trusted. Bob never kept more than a couple thousand EC dollars in blockchain issues, but even that small investment paid good returns to him.

Charlie

Charles Clarke was born in Crantock, Cornwall, England in 1985. Charlie always wanted to be a sea captain, preferably in the Caribbean. In 2007 he signed on with the cruise lines and has worked his way up to captain of the launch boats (aka life rafts) when they go ashore in the smaller ports. Charlie likes the life and enjoys helping his guests have happy experiences. Charlie has been good friends with his ship's pursers and captains, and it was likely these connections that enabled him to get away with a crazy stunt like selling blockchain credits to passengers.

Charlie's CCC was one of the islands' first cash exchange issues. Started in October of 2019, Charlie pegged 1 CCC to US$1 and made his margins when he bought and sold issues like BCG. Charlie did establish a 0.1 CCC transaction fee for every assignment recorded on the CCC blockchain, and he also limited automatic assignments to a max 1000 CCC per transaction. This limit effectively protects Charlie's pool of 1 million CCC from being stolen when Charlie isn't paying attention, only the small circulating share blocks can be assigned without explicit approval from Charlie and the ship's Purser, and when Charlie has a lot of small share blocks sitting in his AO, he can consolidate them to a block > 1000 CCC to put them back into protected status.

By 2025 Charlie has accumulated several thousand "lost" CCC from guests who never redeemed it for cash. The CCC sales agreement includes a 7 year expiration clause, but the cruise line strongly suggests that Charlie should make due dilligence to track down holders of outstanding shares to try to return their money to them. Still, not everyone comes for another cruise, or responds to the e-mail address they bought the CCC under, so after 7 years their unspent CCC automatically transfer to Charlie's AO account.

Charlie used to just make recommendations to guests about Bob and Eddie's place up the beach and a few other places around the islands, and in exchange Eddie and Bob would hook him up with free drinks and food when he'd show up. Through selling CCC and redeeming via guests' AOE, he was able to more directly participate in the referral process, and also help his directionally challenged guests find the places they were looking for with their GPS. People like Bob didn't have to trust Charlie to pay up for their CCC holdings, because Bob had already been paid for the BCG that Charlie's guests were offering. People like Irene did choose to trust Charlie to make good on his CCC as cash, but sometimes Irene also offered ITC specials where you could pre-buy 100 ITC for EC$80 and then spend those 100 ITC like cash at her store, Charlie knew some guests who were almost certain to go for this kind of deal, so he'd pre-purchase some ITC for EC$80 and then list them on AOI for EC$88 (actually, 32.60 CCC) when the coupons were ready to spend.

Dave

David McDonna was born on island in 1975. In 1980 his family moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where his dad ran a scooter rental business. In 2000, Dave moved back to the island and tried various ways to make a living, but in the end he settled on scooter rental as the family calling. Starting around 2015, Dave has been transitioning his rental fleet from gas powered scooters to more fat-tire e-bikes. The bikes can trail ride better into the remote beaches, and they're not noisy like the scooters.

When Bob wanted to put a motor on his cart, Dave put a custom 3KW mid-drive with hill climbing capability on for the cost of parts. Still, cost of those parts was EC$3000. Dave's first foray into small business blockchain was investing in BCG, he let Bob pay him part of the cost of the motor in BCG. Like Charlie, Dave turned around and sold those BCG for a profit, at first as a bulk sale to Ziggy and then more directly to guests through CCC and TCC.

It wasn't long before Dave setup his own blockchain and offered DBR on the open market: 1 DBR is good for a 1 hour e-bike rental, 2 DBR for 4 hours and 3 DBR for all day. Dave normally charges US$19 per e-bike rental credit (US$38 for 4 hours, or US$57 for all day) but he put his DBR ask on the blockchain market starting at US$15 per credit, increasing by US$0.02 per DBR "out on the market." So anytime he has less than 200 DBR out, DBR are a discount compared to normal rental rates. With the occasional exception, the market stabilized around 150 DBR out which gives Dave about US$2500 of extra cash to work with. Dave is doing well before his blockchain issue, he doesn't need the cash, but having DBR "out there" on other people's accounts does drive more bike renters his way. In kind, Dave holds about US$2000 worth of other good island businesses' issues and helps to promote them.

Eddie

Eddie Evans was born on island in 1982. He bounced around the entertainment and hospitality industry ever since he was old enough to pester Bob's band while they were playing local bars. He worked in hotels, and when he was old enough hotel bars and restaurant bars mostly on the island, he was always a popular bartender. Finally, in 2012, his friends and folks got together and opened Eddie's place on the beach. Comfortable, relaxed, music and drinks in an ideal location - very popular with locals and guests, Eddie's place has always done very well.

Eddie was Bob's first investor. For Eddie, shares of BCG were better than a cash loan because he could turn those shares back to the open market for cash faster than Bob would ever repay a loan. Eddie mostly thought that Bob's grill-cart upgrade would keep Bob at Eddie's place more often, so he made the short term investment to help Bob, and his bar business. Eddie likes his cash, and he makes a lot of it. Eddie was slower than most bars to accept blockchain as a form of payment, but eventually he saw how it was helping him indirectly through Bob and AOE, so he started accepting ZIC and CCC in season - sometimes for a premium for extra cash in his pocket, sometimes for a discount to try to draw business, until he eventually just settled on 1:1 exchange as good enough for everybody.

Once in a while, Eddie would do another small placement offer like he did for Bob, but he never got into the whole AOI scene, he mostly settled up monthly with Charlie and Ziggy. When Ziggy was paying 10% annual interest on ZIC he tried to talk Eddie into holding it instead of cashing it, but Eddie wasn't born yesterday. He did get interest on the ZIC he held between settlements, but at the end of each month he gave Ziggy all of his ZIC back in exchange for a check that he cashed immediately. Eddie never saw the point of setting up his own blockchain.

Faythe

Faythe Fahie was born on island in 1960. She's a big figure in the Methodist church, and well known all over the island. Faythe enjoys helping her neighbors and improving life for everyone on the island.

When Gene first approached Faythe about hosting a blockchain server from her home, it sounded like fun. She was helping small local businesses and really didn't have to do anything other than give up a tiny little piece of her closet and a couple of dollars a month in electricity and some internet bandwidth that she didn't even notice. After the local paper did that story on island business blockchains, everybody wanted to talk with Faythe about it. Faythe never thought she would issue a blockchain of her own. She told the paper and everyone she met that Gene's old computer in her closet server was just a backup, Gene hosted the master copy in the cloud, she's just happy to be helping everyone. But, that didn't stop Nick from thinking he could ransom her computer.

After Nick broke into her house, Faythe didn't want to just stop running the backup. The community came together, bought a new energy efficient silent computer and a lot of video surveilance equipment for Faythe's house. They issued 10,000 FHC at a nominal price of EC$5, various donors purchased 1200 FHC which funded the new equipment and everyone who has a blockchain started giving Faythe 1 FHC per month as a hosting and backup fee. Faythe offered the other FHC on the open market using the typical ramping price based on number of FHC outstanding, starting at EC$5 and increasing slowly as more FHC are outstanding in the market. Faythe uses the ongoing proceeds to cover the cost of Gene's cloud hosting and they save the surplus for special projects.

Gene

Gene Green was born in 1965 in Gainesville Georgia. Gene used to teach computer science at Georgia Tech, but in 2015 he retired to a little place in Crocus Bay. Gene loves the island life and teaches the occasional class at the community college and sometimes at the University of the West Indies. Gene attends Methodist services with Faythe, and also hangs out down at Eddie's place a lot.

Gene was the technical mastermind who got the blockchain back-end processes working for everyone on the island. Basically, he just installed the Assign Onward Recorder (AOR) software and used the AOGenesis Maker to setup the individual blockchain issues. AOR gets complicated pretty quickly when setting up multiple backups, Gene worked through all that and the AOR instances mostly take care of themselves now.

Every so often Gene teaches a small blockchain usage course at the community college. Gene also helps people get their genesis blocks configured appropriately for their use cases and gets them started using the AOS and AOI apps. Before the break-in, Gene and Faythe stayed away from the AOI app, not wanting to have the appearance that they were making money off of everyone. After the break-in, it became clear to everyone that there are some costs associated in hosting and they started paying for those costs by buying FHC from Faythe. Gene setup an AOI to make a market in FHC and establish small holdings in the better issues from around the island, like 5-10 BCG, 3-5 DBR, etc.

Gene likes mountain hiking, so sometimes he visits Hans in Saba. Even though Hans' HSS doesn't circulate much on Bob's island, Bob and Hans setup a mutual backup arrangement, so now the Faythe hosted island blockchains are stored on a computer in Faythe's closet, another in Hans' villa on Saba, and the cloud copy. In return, Hans' HSS are also mirrored on Bob's cloud instance and in Faythe's computer - as well as Hans' other server in Heerlen.

Hans

Hans van den Heuvel was born in Heerlen, Netherlands in 1963. From a young age, Hans' parents would take him on yearly trips to the Dutch West Indies. In 1971 the family bought their first villa on their favorite island Saba, and they have been buying and selling island real estate ever since.

Hans travels between Heerlen and Saba several times a year, and he runs a cash exchange blockchain issue: HSS. Hans has pegged 1 HSS = US$1. At first HSS wasn't used for much, but over time Hans developed a reputation as a reliable conduit of funds between the Netherlands and Saba. HSS doesn't circulate much with the tourists on Saba, except as a way to pay for lodging. Hans accepts all kinds of currency and credit cards and forwards payment to the owners on the HSS blockchain with clear reporting of what property was paid for and when. It has made the rentals market more transparent, which was more popular with the renters than the owners at first, but when occupancy went up the owners learned to like it too. HSS doesn't get traded much at all outside Saba and people who visit Saba.

Irene

Irene Illidge of South Hill Village was born on island in 1955. Irene attends church with Faythe and Gene in the Valley. Irene owns Island Threads clothing store on Sandy Ground, and in 2020 she started accepting CCC and ZIC like cash. Irene gets together with Charlie in April before the Odyessy leaves port and settles up face to face for the CCC she has collected. Charlie usually writes Irene an ordinary bank check, which they electronically deposit while having drinks at Eddie's. Irene sees Ziggy all the time and when she's got a few hundred ZIC in her AOS, she'll meet Ziggy or Peter at the bank in the valley to exchange it for a deposit in her account.

Jonida

Jonida was born in Elbasan Albania in 1981. In 2002 she met and married Jetmir Jashari and not long after they moved to Durrës. Jonida and Jetmir celebrated the New Year 2021 with a 7 day island cruise.

Karen

Bob's daughter born in 2000, Karen helped Rita move her mangoes through her contacts at the hospital where Karen works as a nurse. Before blockchain, Karen would basically bring bags of mangoes into work and hand them out to whoever said they wanted some. Through talk about and sales of RMF, Karen was able to dig deeper and find resorts that were serious about the quality of their fruit.

Larry

Larry Liepiņš was born in Lubāna Latvia in 1959. He attended University in Riga and stayed on as a graduate student and eventually associate professor of Latin studies for many years. In 2018 Larry left Latvia and now he practically lives at the Lazy Lizard Lounge in the lobby of Long Bay Resort. Larry is looking for love, but lacking luck lately. If he can't score with the ladies, he might try to score a pile of cash before he leaves the island for his next adventure. Larry is a social engineer attacker. He has successfully scammed access to a few ladies' AOE accounts, but so far there has been far too little value in the accounts to make it worth the risk of stealing.

Mal

Network based attacker from the Middle East, location is uncertain but Mount Carmel Haifa is suspected. In reality, Mal Mackler was born in 2005, has far too much time on his hands and parents who just don't care what he does. He's surprisingly persistent and clever enough to exploit flaws, if there are any to find. What Mal doesn't have is inside information. If he and Larry ever start working together, that's a whole new level of threat.

Nick

Nicholas Neysmith has been knocking around the Caribbean since he was born on Montserrat in 1990. Mail boats, odd jobs, Nick has more than a little pirate blood in him, he's known as a small time breaking and entering artist. Not terribly bright, but always looking for a score, Nick can be a problem.

Oscar

Oscar Owen was born on island in 1973. He lives off the Valley Road near the airport. Oscar's not out to hurt anybody, but he's not very good at what he does, either. The main thing Oscar messed up with his blockchain was that he kept selling virtual plates faster than he was redeeming them until he had too many on the market and their value crashed. With 500 OGP outstanding, and Oscar only redeeming about 20 a month, he's lost everyone's confidence that they will get repaid anytime soon. If Oscar would start redeeming OGP faster than he sells it, the price would likely rebound, but Oscar needs the cash so he has a hard time because redeeming OGP doesn't get him any cash today.

Oscar does other stuff for cash besides selling curry goat, so when he has some extra cash he has the option to buy some OGP off the market for cash... that might be his quickest path back to credibility - which would mean that he could start selling OGP for a better price in the future.

Peter

When Ziggy's ZIC started taking off, he had a problem with being two places at once, so he took on a partner: Peter. Peter Palmer grew up in Parham town, Tortola. Born in 1992, Peter packed up and resettled with his sweetheart Piper in the Valley in 2010. Peter developed a reputation as a very trustworthy deck hand on the fishing charters, handling the tackle and the permit fees. Ziggy started Peter part time between fishing charters, but after a few years Peter was working for Ziggy exclusively.

Ziggy handles the dock sales, customer service and business relations, Peter handles the money - both collection and refund at the docks, and bank transactions. Despite his reputation Peter's not exactly a saint. One day he tried pocketing $20 from a guest purchase of ZIC, but by the end of the day he and Ziggy got an e-mail from Victor pointing out the shortfall in the day's deposit. Ziggy split the loss 50/50 with Peter, "everybody makes mistakes sometime" he said, so Peter came out ahead on his little experiment, but he also decided that his partnership with Ziggy is worth more.

Quincy

The quant works from his villa in Yodzonot. Born in old York in 1972, Quincy Quackenbush was a successful trader in London before he left Queen and country in 2014 for his villa in Quintana Roo. Quincy tried applying his trading algorithms to the island blockchains, but met with limited success due to his lack of local knowledge and the small trading volumes. Most of the island blockchains resist high frequency trading by setting fairly high recording fees. After awhile he turned his capital to other more profitable uses. Quincy entered the local markets by purchasing 1000 ZIC online with a credit card, and from there he let his algorithms identify the most profitable trading opportunities, which resulted in a narrowing of the bid-ask spread on most issues. Quincy made moderate profits, but they were offset by occasional total losses when blockchains would shut down unexpectedly. On-island investors like Bob and Dave had the inside track on when a particular blockchain might be shutting down, and Quincy taught his algorithms to look for signs of a selloff, but his algorithms could only follow, not lead those indicators. Ultimately, the risk reward ratios were better elsewhere so Quincy executed an exit through Hans' HSS into more interesting European markets.

Rita

Rita Reynolds was born in Boden Town, Grand Cayman in 1974. She grew up there until she met Bob, playing his bass guitar at a Georgetown beach bar in 1994. Bob was taking classes and thinking about starting to settle down with more regular work. Rita came to the Valley to settle down with him. Their first daughter Sharon was born in 1995. Rita started working for a grocery in the Valley and still works there today. Rita and Bob had another daughter Karen in 2000, and not long after Karen was born the family moved into the house with the big mango tree. When Bob issued his BCG, Rita issued RMF: Rita's Mango Futures, which were successful at finding good buyers for her mangoes, but ultimately not worth continuing as a blockchain issue, so Rita closed out RMF after a couple of years.

Sharon

Bob and Rita's daughter Sharon, born in 1995, is a taxi driver. Sharon didn't want to have anything to do with blockchain at first, but when guests started asking if they could pay through AOE she checked it out and saw how it could get her a little more from her fares. Showing her location on AOE didn't hurt business any, either. Sharon tried holding on to a few hundred ZIC while Ziggy was paying interest on it, better than bank rates and she didn't get burned, but "backed by Ziggy" certainly doesn't inspire confidence like the promises of a big bank does.

Ted

Born in 1968, Theodore Toussaint was raised in Thibaud, Dominica, but he moved to Roseau for college and never left. Ted has worked with tour companies and other guest hospitality services most of his life. In 2019 he started TCC: Ted's Caribbean Coin and worked out some deals with island tour operators, restaurants and bars to accept TCC from tourists, both from the cruise ships and the airport. TCC wasn't exclusive to Dominica for long. Many businesses in Martinique and Guadalupe readily accepted the idea of getting a small cash investment that they could pay back via goods and services. Sometimes Ted made the initial investment himself, sometimes he found investors who were eager to take the initial placement and then sell their shares on the AO market for a profit. Ted had arrangements with some cruise ship pursers to sell TCC to their guests before coming ashore, other ships had their own AO dealers like Charlie - no matter, Ted and Charlie set up an exchange agreement so that tourists could trade TCC for CCC and back, for a small fee. Walter made friends with Ted and occasionally helps him smooth over regulatory issues with TCC.

Ursula

Ursula Unruh of Ulysses Kansas is a kind of ghost in the machine. Nobody really remembers her, but she apparently took a cruise and bought several cash issues, then started trading through AOI without appearing in person. e-mail sent to the address she stated: urunulysses@hushmail.com goes unanswered. Most people believe she's an alias used by Quincy to get additional stake in the local markets.

Victor

Walter's forensic accountant, from Venice, Italy. Born in 1976, Victor Vespa has worked for Walter and traveled with him since 2004. Victor has setup automatic auditing for ZIC and a few other island issues, and he runs open AOV copies of all island issues.

Walter

A high-roller investment banker based on the island. Probably due to his own big blockchain project, Walter has a strong interest in keeping the perception of integrity in island investments as good as it can be. Walter Weber was born in Wels, Austria in 1956, but moved around with his parents quite a bit. Educated in Jesuit schools Belgium, Italy and the US, Walter has been doing real estate development, banking and investments in the islands since the 1980s.

Xavier

Xavier Xiong of Xuancheng China, like Ursula, has been another bear to find in real life. Although he listed an email address of xxxilin@163.com, he too is a ghost in the machine, mostly holding, rarely trading, when he does trade IP address do usually show Mr. X's current location in mainland China.

Yllka

Owner of an Albanian coffee shop where Alice goes when she's not cruising. KKY: Kreditë e kafesë Yllka. Born in 1983, Yllka Ypi had been selling coffee in Durrës for over a decade when she decided to try issuing blockchain based coffee coupons with a twist: a fixed 10,000 KKY credits divided among KKY shareholders, but whenever a KKY credit is traded, 10% of its associated shares are expired - so, holders of shares in KKY all get a 1/100,000 boost in their credit holdings for every KKY credit traded. If a KKY is bought and then redeemed, that's 2 trades, 20% loss to the trader, but, Yllka introduced KKY to the market at 25% off face value, so just doing a purchase directly through KKY results in a 5% discount. For every 70,000 YKK transactions, holders of YKK will see their credits double. Yllka sells an average of more than 200 coffees a day and each coffee sold represents a minimum of 2 transactions: 1 buy and 1 sell, so 70,000 transactions happen roughly every 6 months, if everyone buying coffee uses YKK. Yllka set a price ramp based on YKK outstanding so that customers get a 5% discount when all shares are outstanding, no discount when half the shares are outstanding, and pay a 5% premium when zero shares are outstanding - as more customers are holding YKK instead of immediately redeeming it for coffee, the discount goes down, and presumably the number of YKK transactions goes down, reducing returns and finding some equilibrium point with Yllka holding approximately 5000 YKK and the other half held by investor-customers. There's no money being "created" here, it's just sharing income with the investors. YKK is only redeemable through Yllka for coffee, or to other investors. It's basically a fun coupon game for her customers.

So, if a customer "invests" in 10 YKK and holds them for 5 years, what's happening there? 5 years could be 10 doublings of the shares, effectively this investor will corner the market, right? Well, as the total of all investor's holdings start to exceed 5000 YKK, the universal use of YKK should diminish considerably because Yllka is raising the price to a point where it's cheaper to not buy and use YKK. As that use of YKK drops, return diminishes, investors likely sell or drink their YKK and the growth market picks up again. There is a danger that the investors put a run on YKK and Yllka gets no cash for her next ~5000 cups of coffee, almost a month's worth, but remember that Yllka received money for YKK up front, so that should compensate for the wind-down costs. One or two early investors might drink free coffee for life at Yllka's, but their cups are being paid for by the discount that Yllka is giving on YKK. Then there's also the fact that Yllka has put a 1 year expiration on YKK, so share holders need to trade their shares (and pay a 10% exchange tax to all other share holders even if they trade their shares to themselves) at least once every year, so even though the big shareholders still drink for free, there is plenty of froth in the mix to keep things interesting for other players.

Ziggy

Irene's nephew Ziggy Illidge was born in 1984, and bounced around the Caribbean with charter boat services from 2000 through 2015, finally settling down working for mostly one big charter company out of Blowing Point. Conveniently located in the stream of incoming ferry boat passengers, Ziggy's true talent is spotting people who are looking for something to do and introducing them to all the best his island has to offer. When Ziggy got wind of Bob's blockchain deal with Charlie's guests, he figured "why let Charlie control the cash?" so, he started ZIC: Ziggy's Island Credits, a natural fit for his sales skills. Walter's man Victor, and Ziggy's woman Zamira keep Ziggy mostly on the straight and narrow, which is ultimately good for everybody's business.

Island Life: Characters