The Airdrop Fisherman of Bali (Fiction)
Once upon a time, in a small coastal village on the shores of Bali, there lived a fisherman named Wayan. By day, Wayan cast his nets into the turquoise waters, hauling in tuna and mackerel under the blazing sun. But by night, he traded his fishing rod for a smartphone, diving into the depths of a different sea—the wild, unpredictable world of cryptocurrency.
Wayan wasn’t your typical crypto enthusiast. He had no fancy degree or tech startup job. He was a simple man with salt-crusted hands and a heart full of curiosity. It all started one evening at the warung, where he overheard a group of surfers from Australia talking about “airdrops”—free tokens given out by blockchain projects. Intrigued, Wayan asked them to explain, and soon his mind was hooked like a fish on a line. Free tokens? A chance to earn something new? It sounded like the ocean offering him a gift.
The next day, while mending his nets, Wayan learned about an airdrop from a project called “BaliCoin,” which promised to reward locals who signed up to test their decentralized app. The app aimed to connect fishermen directly with buyers, cutting out middlemen. Wayan saw the potential—not just for tokens, but for his village. With his old Nokia phone swapped for a second-hand Android (a gift from his cousin in Denpasar), he set out on his airdrop adventure.
The first challenge was technical. Setting up a wallet felt like navigating a storm without a compass. Terms like “private keys” and “gas fees” swirled around him like a monsoon wind. But Wayan was no stranger to patience—he’d spent hours waiting for fish to bite. With help from a YouTube tutorial in Bahasa Indonesia, he managed to create a wallet and scribble his seed phrase on the back of an old fishing permit.
Then came the social hurdle. His wife, Made, laughed when he told her about BaliCoin. “Tokens? Can I fry them with sambal?” she teased, stirring a pot of ikan pepes. His neighbors were just as skeptical, whispering that it sounded like a scam from Jakarta. Undeterred, Wayan explained it to them using a metaphor: “It’s like planting rice in the digital sawah. You water it with effort, and maybe it grows into something valuable.”
The real test came when BaliCoin asked participants to complete tasks—joining a Discord server, posting on Instagram, and inviting friends. Wayan didn’t know Discord from a dolphin, and his Instagram was just pictures of fish and sunsets. But he learned, step by step, with the same grit he used to repair a torn net. He even roped in his teenage daughter, Lila, who giggled as she taught him to type “gm” in the chat and hashtag #BaliCoin.
Just as he was getting the hang of it, a snag hit. Indonesia’s rules on crypto tightened, and rumors swirled that airdrops might be banned. Wayan worried he’d lose his chance. But then he remembered the village spirit of gotong royong—working together. He gathered other curious fishermen at the banjar, and they pooled their knowledge. One knew a lawyer in Ubud who said airdrops were still legal if no money was invested. Another had a nephew who’d done ten airdrops already. Together, they pressed on.
The airdrop day arrived like a full moon tide. Wayan sat under a banyan tree, phone in hand, as the tokens splashed into his wallet. It wasn’t a fortune—just a handful of BaliCoins—but to him, it was a treasure from the digital deep. More than that, he’d caught something bigger: a spark of possibility. He started dreaming of how blockchain could track fish sales or fund a new boat.
As the sun set over the Bali Sea, Wayan sipped a cup of kopi Bali and smiled. Made still thought his tokens were nonsense, but she’d come around—especially when he used some to buy her a new mortar for grinding spices. And in the village, whispers of airdrops began to spread, carried on the breeze like the scent of frangipani.
Wayan, the fisherman-turned-airdropper, had cast his net wide and reeled in a future he never expected—one where the old ways and the new could dance together like waves on the shore.
