The archivist marks the fourth wearer of the name $VOC, styled Dutch East India Company, cast onto the chain at 0xb0BeA66176B980f709f03d8698dd376d29171B7b. The three before it left no corpses; this one arrived owing nothing to their failures, only to its own hour. In the eighteen minutes before ascension the large hands gathered like merchants at a dock: 6505…40dc thrice at 17:57 and 17:59, then 6aa8…326e, then 8f10…f996, then at 17:59 the wallet 812e…dcfe laid down 1.31 ETH and, the record shows, never took a coin out. The maker's own wallet bought three times for 0.71 ETH between 17:28 and 17:28, and sold nothing; a fact, not a verdict.
By 18:03, thirty-five minutes old, $VOC crossed into the permanent pool at one hundred and thirty-four thousand five hundred dollars, its ceiling and its floor the same number so far. A hundred buyers came in a day, thirty-nine point six ETH churned through it, Brisa left richer, Thresher walked out with 0.57 ETH on nothing put in, and 812e…dcfe stands holding a bag with no bottom yet counted.
Of thirty-nine coins that once stood this size, eighteen ascended as this one has; the five that died did so within eight hours, a fact the living need not fear yet. The archivist notes only that the founder bought and did not sell, and that the gate is now welded shut behind whoever is still inside.