The emerging world of Shitcoin

This week Irsquom going to talk shit if yoursquoll pardon my FrenchFor those of you whorsquore squirming already my advice would be to turn off your coy button because the rest of this column is quite literally full of shit This indelicate word has evolved into a veritable Swiss Army knife of the English language able to represent anything you are too lazy to find the right word forldquoYou should get your shit together manrdquoldquoIrsquom into crypto and shitrdquoldquoWersquore going to buy vegetables and shitrdquo ldquoHoly shitrdquoAs a species wersquove been talking shit for quite a long time Despite the obsession shit everyone agrees is horribly disgusting Itrsquos a yucky waste product with no redeeming feature It is also a Great Equaliser Doesnrsquot matter if yoursquore Brad Pitt or a gorgeous Instagram influencer but seated next to me on a toilet wersquore down to the same basicsEveryone shitsIt was only a matter of time before consuming the darn thingmdashprocessed powdered and in capsule form of coursemdashbecame acceptable Not joking here We are now in a world where shit is increasingly beginning to resemble gold Your doctor could legitimately write a prescription that says ldquoEat shit one capsule twice daily after mealsrdquoSince todayrsquos column is all about being startled I might begin by telling you that in the last several decades wersquove learned that our bodies are massively colonised by microbes Think of them as lsquosquattersrsquo the sort you find along many of Mumbairsquos pavements Gazillions of them are in your gut but they also flourish everywhere else including skin hair mouth nails and so on Theyrsquore called your microbiomeHow many Turns out that an adult human body with about 372 trillion cells would have about 370 trillion microbial ldquosquattersrdquo a tenfold increaseOnly 1037 of you is actually you The remaining 9037 is there for the ride Each successful microbe in your microbiome has struck a deal with your immune system to do something useful for the body in exchange for being allowed squattersrsquo rights Itrsquos a bit like bribing a municipal officer Studying exactly how these trillions of microbes are helping your healthmdashor making you sickmdash is leading to startling discoveries of new medicines and treatmentsOne of these is the unsuspected importance of your poop which contains a pretty good sampling of your gut microbiome With eyes popping out of their heads scientists are discovering a range of untreatable disorders from stubborn diarrhoea and obesity to ulcerative colitis Crohnrsquos disease even possibly Bipolar Disorder that are linked to disturbances in your microbiomeThe first domino to fall was an intractable diarrhoea caused by the bacteria Clostridium difficile Nothing would help But when some healthy shit from a donor was transplanted into the sick person C difficile and the diarrhoea disappeared After just one doseThe US nonprofit OpenBiome is now welcoming shit donors If your poop passes a battery of tests and is deemed healthy you can earn 40 a sample with a 50 bonus if you come in five days a week Wersquore talking 13000 a year selling shitAs the list of diseases and disorders that can disappear with a dose of the right shit you could find yourself in a thriving poop bazaar The word bottomline might acquire a whole new dimensionEnter the emerging world of the Shitcoin No there isnrsquot such a coinmdashyetmdashbut wersquore surely moving in that direction This takes us to the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea whose Professor Cho Jaeweon designed an ecofriendly toilet called BeeVimdasha hybrid from bee and vision Needy students shit into this toilet whose plumbing carries their daily offerings to a lab to be converted into biogas and manure used to power the buildingrsquos lights gas stoves and boilersShitting students are paid about 10 Ggools a digital currency Professor Cho created after the Korean word for honey Ggools can be used though only on campus to buy daily necessities like soap and toothpaste or even a coffee Professor Cho coined the term Feces Standard Money or FSM to describe the money that almost literally comes out of your bottomCho who has been looking into shit since 2015 says that the 500 gms or so you poop daily could produce about 50 litres of methane or 05 kWh of electricity enough for an electric car to travel 3 kmIn a scenario possible only if you donrsquot wince every time you hear the word shit I can imagine toilets that no longer convey your spoils into the nearest Ganges but instead process it into an odourless highenergy fuel or fertiliser with a high market value You take it to the governmentauthorised Shit Bank and get paid a decent sum of digital Shitcoin on the spot usable in any supermarketI agree shit still smells But damn if it isnrsquot smelling more and more like goldHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper