The Italian comic series Topolino enters the crypto world

In the last issue of Topolino (which is the name of Mickey Mouse in Italian), there is explicit mention of crypto.

In fact, on the official Italian Facebook page of Topolino Magazine, a post has also been published saying:

“Do you know what cryptocurrencies are? We explain it in Topolino Magazine 3361 thanks to Rockerduck and Uncle Scrooge!”.

It’s issue 3361 of Topolino dated April 22nd 2020, which contains several stories including “Uncle Scrooge and the Cryptodeposit“, with the screenplay by Alessandro Sisti and the drawings by Vitale Mangiatordi. 

The story belongs to the series “Uncle Scrooge and alternative finance”, and tells the story of Rockerduck, who launches his own cryptocurrency, R-Koin. As demand increases, he decides to have a huge computer built in the form of a warehouse for its processing, but this computer consumes a lot of energy and risks bursting. 

Uncle Scrooge is a bystander for most of the story but then intervenes in the ending by solving the problem and saying that he too has his own cryptocurrency. 

The story also mentions two other imaginary cryptocurrencies, the Eccetherum and the $oldoni, which in reality have nothing to do with the real history of cryptocurrencies. 

It is an enjoyable story, in the classic style of Uncle Scrooge and his rival Rockerduck, which takes only a few cues from real cryptocurrencies for mere narrative purposes. 

It has no didactic ambition or informative implications: it is pure entertainment, in full respect of the Topolino tradition.

For example, there is no mention of decentralization, except for a passage in which Rockerduck claims to have full control of his cryptocurrency. 

Nor is there any mention of the non-censorship of real cryptocurrencies or the protection of users’ privacy, 

Moreover, there is a rather macroscopic concept error: if Rockerduck has absolute control of R-Koin, he doesn’t need a huge computer to create and manage transactions, since he could use a normal database with enormously lower costs and consumption. 

For this reason, the screenwriter’s goal wasn’t necessarily to explain to the readers what cryptocurrencies are like, or how they actually work, but only to tell a made-up story inspired by some of the most famous aspects of these technologies, not necessarily the most important ones. 

However, the fact that these new technologies are starting to spread even in such mainstream publications shows that they are really able to attract the interest of the masses, even though their real functioning is still obscure to most people.