It was a quiet night, and Alex was sitting at his desk, illuminated only by the dim blue light of his monitor. As a cryptocurrency enthusiast, he spent hours reviewing his investments, analyzing charts, and reading market news. It was 2:47 AM when his phone vibrated with an unexpected notification from his digital wallet. Puzzled, he opened the app and saw something that left him perplexed: he had received 1000 units of a meme coin called **"ShadowToken" (SHDW)**.
"ShadowToken? What the hell is this?" Alex murmured, frowning. He didn't remember participating in an airdrop or interacting with any smart contract that would justify that transaction. Intrigued, he decided to investigate.
He opened his browser and searched for "ShadowToken" on Google, CoinMarketCap, Reddit, and various cryptocurrency forums. Nothing. Not a single mention. It was as if the coin didn't exist in the vast digital universe. A chill ran down his spine, but he attributed it to fatigue. He decided to go further and checked the transaction on a block explorer. What he found puzzled him even more: the 1000 SHDW came from an address with no previous history, as if it had been created solely to send that coin to him.
In that instant, the lights in his room flickered. Alex looked up, tense, but everything returned to normal. "Just an electrical problem," he told himself, though he wasn't entirely convinced.
---
The next morning, Alex woke up exhausted. He had strange nightmares: shadows moving in the corners of his room and unintelligible whispers that pursued him in the dark. He shook his head to clear it and checked his wallet. His heart skipped a beat: the balance of ShadowToken had increased to **1500 SHDW**. There was no logical explanation for that.
He decided to get rid of the coins. He opened the app, selected the transfer option, and sent the SHDW to another wallet he used for experiments. But the transaction failed. He tried again. It failed again. Frustrated, he searched for ShadowToken on a decentralized exchange to sell them, but there were no trading pairs, liquidity, or offers. It was as if the market completely ignored the existence of that coin.
That night, while trying to sleep, his computer turned on by itself. The screen showed his wallet with the ShadowToken balance glowing in white letters on a black background. Alex jumped up and turned off the computer with trembling hands. His pulse quickened. Something was not right.
---
The next day, the strange events intensified. He started receiving text messages from unknown numbers:
- "You can't escape."
- "The shadow follows you."
He blocked the numbers, but the messages kept coming from different senders. Desperate, Alex sought answers in the darkest corners of the internet. After hours, he found a thread in a little-known forum. An anonymous user had written:
*"ShadowToken is not a normal currency. It was created by a developer who wanted to use the blockchain to contact entities from another world. He said that transactions could be rituals, portals to hidden dimensions. After launching SHDW, he disappeared. Some say those 'entities' took him away."*
Alex read that with a mix of skepticism and terror. Could it be true? Was he trapped in something bigger than he could comprehend?
He decided to take drastic measures. He deleted his wallet, uninstalled all cryptocurrency apps, and reset his phone to factory settings. "It's over," he thought, relieved. But the next day, when he turned on his phone, the wallet was there again, as if it had never left. The balance of ShadowToken was now **2000 SHDW**.
---
Panic overtook him. He sought help in cryptocurrency communities, but no one had heard of ShadowToken. Some took it as a joke; others suggested it was a hack. No one had answers.
One night, while trying to sleep, he felt a presence. He opened his eyes and saw it: a shadowy figure next to his bed. It was not solid; it seemed made of moving shadows, with bright eyes that pierced through him. Alex screamed and turned on the light. The figure disappeared, but in his wallet, the balance had risen to **3000 SHDW**.
Desperate, Alex burned his phone in a fit of madness and bought a new one. He installed only the essentials, avoiding anything related to cryptocurrencies. But when setting it up, the wallet automatically synced from the cloud. The ShadowTokens were still there, unperturbed.
---
Over time, Alex accepted his fate. The nightmares, the flickering lights, and the whispers became part of his life. But one day, while walking down the street, he saw a woman staring at her phone with a look of pure terror. He approached and managed to see her screen: a balance of ShadowToken had appeared in her wallet.
"I don't know where this came from! I don't want it!" she exclaimed, trembling. Alex felt a knot in his stomach. The coin was spreading.
He walked home alone, aware that the shadow was following him. ShadowToken was not just his curse; it was a digital plague that spread silently, bringing terror to whoever received it. And somewhere, in the infinite web of the blockchain, something—or someone—was still watching.