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I hate to be the one to tell you this, but theres a cryptocurrency themed after The Lord of the Rings. Its dubbed the JRR Token, and its creators have called it The One Token That Rules Them All. Upon learning about it, my snap judgment was that itll be like The Hobbits trilogy of films (pointless and doomed to fail), but that may be unfair. Lets take a look at the video its creators made to explain what makes it special:

Okay, wait. Before we even go into the crypto stuff, Im wondering what the legal situation is with this video the video includes images of rolling green countryside overlaid by very Lord of the Rings-esque text, while what sounds like a piano rendition of Howard Shores The Shire plays. Even if those dont turn out to be infringement, theyre definitely banking on confusion with JRR Tolkiens name. That doesnt seem like the kind of thing the Tolkien Estate would let slide without a fight.

Lets put all that aside for now. Whats JRR Token all about? The website and video say that Tokenites, or anyone with tokens, will get more of those tokens as more people use the network. It also says that a portion of every transaction will be added to a liquidity pool, which Im sorry to say doesnt have anything to do with that terrifying scene of Galadriel showing Frodo the Scouring of the Shire. If youre wondering how its Tokenomics work out to making it a functional currency, I am too but reading the tokens whitepaper, and through some of the FAQ for the Binance platform (which JRR Token is built on) didnt clear things up.

The website does, however, go into detail on how to obtain the tokens. To someone whos not exceedingly familiar with crypto, but knows how more popular coins work, the process seems akin to answering and asking riddles in the dark. It involves sending payment to a contract address which sounds even sketchier than if it were done through, say, a Mt. Gox clone called Mt. Doom.

Maybe I could overlook all that if the creators of JRR Token had paid an actor who appeared in the Lord of the Rings films to promote the cryptocurrency. Perhaps if Billy Boyd, the actor who played Pippin, were to make a Cameo, Id be sold!

Well, that was a thing that actually happened. And while JRR Tokens tweet containing that video endorsement has since been deleted, the people behind the JRR Token have since tweeted something nearly as incredible (shout out to Boing Boing for the find):

The project is now public, so you can see trading charts of it and everything. At this point, though, its unclear if the token is just a troll (the internet kind, not the cave kind), or if its serious. As Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi points out, it can be hard to tell with nascent cryptocurrencies. We reached out to crypto expert and UVA assistant professor Lana Swartz to get her read on whether The Token of Power and its stated goals make sense, and she also says that its tough to say these days, especially after the rise of Dogecoin.

Well, whether its creators are earnest or not, am I rushing to buy JRR Token, hoping to get in on the ground floor? No, absolutely not (and not just because The Verges ethics policy forbids it.) After many days and nights of deep Lord of the Rings research, Ive come away with the impression that the One Ring was not actually a force for good. Specifically, if I were writing a whitepaper about my cryptocurrency, I wouldnt use the text engraved on the Ring to describe said cryptocurrency and I certainly wouldn't compare my coins market to the Rings power to bind the other rings to Saurons will, resulting in humans becoming Ringwraiths.

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The JRR Token cryptocurrency is almost certainly headed for Mt. Doom - The Verge