Chapter [10]: [TIGHTENING SPREADS]
Spring came unevenly.
Warm days arrived like false starts, followed by cold snaps that reminded everyone winter hadn't finished speaking. Ethan felt it in his body—the restless energy of longer daylight paired with the fatigue of uncertainty.
Bitcoin's spread tightened.
Not dramatically, not enough to make headlines that didn't exist yet, but enough to change behavior. Fewer wild swings. More clustering around a narrow band. On the forums, confidence crept in sideways, subtle but unmistakable.
Stability, people called it.
Ethan called it compression.
At the copy shop, Carl announced a small raise. Twenty-five cents an hour.
"It's not much," Carl said defensively. "But it's something."
Ethan thanked him sincerely. It was something. It bought time.
That night, he adjusted his spreadsheet again, shifting projections by weeks instead of days. Time was the only asset that compounded reliably.
Maya invited him to a small dinner with friends—grad students, policy types, one journalist who asked too many questions. Ethan went reluctantly, aware of the exposure, but unwilling to retreat entirely.
They talked about healthcare reform, about stimulus packages, about whether trust in institutions could be rebuilt or merely replaced.
"What do you do?" the journalist asked Ethan.
He considered. "Operations," he said finally. "Small systems."
It wasn't a lie.
On the walk home, Maya slipped her hand into his. The gesture was casual, almost unconscious. Ethan felt the familiar tension spike—not from the contact, but from what it implied.
"Is this okay?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. And this time, there was no hesitation.
Later, alone, he noted the change the way he noted everything else.
Exposure increased.
Noted. Not reversed.
Mt. Gox announced a minor upgrade. Faster withdrawals. Improved reliability. The forums reacted with enthusiasm disproportionate to the update itself.
Ethan felt the pressure rise—not fear, not excitement, but inevitability. Systems didn't need to be good to become central. They just needed to be good enough, early enough.
Noah's relocation became real. Dates set. Logistics discussed. The apartment began to feel like a memory in advance.
One night, over takeout cartons and cheap beer, Noah raised his bottle.
"To spreads tightening," he said jokingly.
Ethan smiled. "To knowing when they break."
They drank.
Before bed, Ethan logged into his wallet and did something he'd been avoiding.
He ran through a full failure scenario. Exchange collapse. Wallet compromise. Regulatory freeze. Personal burnout.
He imagined the losses—not abstract, but specific. Rent unpaid. Relationships strained. Trust eroded.
Then he imagined surviving them.
He closed the laptop with a sense of grim clarity.
Tight spreads weren't safety.
They were pressure.
And pressure, sooner or later, always resolved—one way or another.