The Simpsons are well known for their uncanny ability to make some accurate predictions about the future. But who could’ve guessed that the writers of the iconic series would’ve predicted the rise of cryptocurrency more than ten years before Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto?
In the 17th episode of the show’s eleventh season, dubbed ‘Bart to the Future‘ which first aired on March 19, 2000, the creators of the show freakishly predicted Donald Trump’s rise to becoming the President of the United Statees, complete with a depiction of him descending the elevator in Trump tower.
The Simpsons predict crypto
Thanks to an old Reddit thread I stumbled across over the weekend, it appears that the creators of the Simpsons may have also predicted the rise of crypto all the way back in the late 90s.
In Episode 17 of season 8 titled ‘My Sister, My Sitter,‘ which aired for the first time on March 2 1997, a location named the ‘Crypto Barn’ made its first appearance, complete with the reference, “a place for codes“.
What makes this reference even more eerie is that it aired more than ten years before cryptocurrencies were ever created. Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency was officially launched when the first ever Bitcoin block — known as the genesis block — was minted on January 3, 2009.
While the Crypto Barn was most likely designed to be part of the Springfields’ less desirable infrastructure, selling surveillance equipment alongside generic ‘codes,’ its similarities to today’s modern cryptocurrency outlets is undeniably strange.
While The Simpson’s initial reference to the world of crypto through the ‘Crypto Barn’ may have been nothing more than an accident through the lens of context-providing hindsight, the creators of the show have since gotten up to speed on the world of cryptocurrency.
In Season 31, Episode 13, Lisa actually gets a lesson from Professor Frink on all things cryptocurrency. He shows Lisa a video where Jim Parsons — who plays Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang Theory — explains the concept of cryptocurrency to the viewer. To be fair, the show actually does a really good job at explaining how crypto works in less than a minute.
