Since antiquity, mankind has asked the same question in different robes: how does a person get rich, and how soon may he stop working? The pharaohs had tombs, the Medici had banks, and today's dreamers have opinion markets. A fresh one has opened on Morfi asking which path could most quickly mint a billionaire, and, ab initio, the crowd has taken a position that would make any sober economist reach for his smelling salts.

Leading the field is "Crypto coin breakout" at 47% consensus, held by 8 holders who apparently believe the shortest road to the top runs through a token with a cartoon dog on it. In second place, at 21% consensus with 7 holders, stands the stubbornly vague "Other high-growth business": the ballot's tidy name for every garage startup, every unexpected empire, every idea nobody has had yet.

Where the crowd stands
  • Crypto coin breakout47%
  • Other high-growth business21%
  • Cancer drug breakthrough16%
  • AI company or model surge16%

Also on the ballot: 2 other sides. One must ask how, in an age when artificial intelligence is treated as the second coming of electricity and a cancer cure would rank among the great achievements of civilisation, the crowd's conviction points instead to cryptocurrency. My charitable reading, offered strictly as opinion: the crowd is not choosing the noblest path, only the quickest one. A drug needs trials and an AI lab needs data centres, while a coin needs only a good meme and a busy weekend. Sic transit gloria laboratorii.

Students of history will of course remember tulip mania, when the burghers of Holland decided a flower bulb was worth a canal house. I do not say the crypto crowd is planting tulips. I merely note, with the raised eyebrow of my profession, that speed and stability have rarely shared a carriage. Readers with long memories will recall that I have watched crypto stumble before, in the one-dollar duel against potted tomatoes, where the humble seedling took the early lead.

Pixel-art race in which a rocket-powered gold coin leads a factory, a lab flask and a robot toward a mountain of gold.
Festina lente, said Augustus. The coin with the rocket boosters did not hear him.

Still, the fight has barely started. So far 20 traders have joined in, putting $53,733 behind their opinions, and with trading open for less than a day the standings are soft clay, not marble. These numbers come from live opinion markets on Morfi, where people put money behind what they think. If you believe the miracle drug or the AI boom deserves the crown, alea iacta est: join the market and say so with your own coin.

Consensus over time
0%25%50%75%100%12 Oct, 00:4812 Oct, 01:21
  • Crypto coin breakout 46.9%
  • Other high-growth business 21%
  • Cancer drug breakthrough 16.1%
  • AI company or model surge 16%