Nobel Laureate’s Wartime Story Calls Crypto ‘Best Proof’ Money Has Long Been Virtual

A short story by Nobel Prize-winning novelist László Krasznahorkai describes cryptocurrency as the “best proof” that money is virtual.

Last week, the Swedish Academy awarded the Hungarian novelist the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Krasznahorkai was accorded the honor for what the committee called “a compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The cryptocurrency reference shows up in one of his recent short stories, An Angel Passed Above Us, which was translated into English and published in The Yale Review in February. It depicts a soldier addressing a motionless comrade as if they might still be listening to his discussion of crypto, blockchain, and beliefs.

The story opens in a shattered Ukrainian trench, where the two lie wounded after a barrage of missiles hit their location.

The monologue on crypto begins with a meditation on money.

The soldier says, “Money for a long time now has been virtual; these days, the best proof of this is cryptocurrency.” He added: “It’s not hard to predict that cryptocurrencies will prove momentous for our societies, today we already know this, so it’s no outlandish claim, the real question is how to do it well.”

Many people “think enthusiasm is enough, but no, lots of know-how is needed, and this know-how requires a broader view, because one must know what crypto is, and what it isn’t, the things it can or cannot be used for,” the fictitious soldier continued.

What began as talk of “know-how” widened into prophecy: To understand crypto, the soldier said, “you need a discerning overview, all right, but you also need a vision.”

From there, the sermon deepened, with the soldier insisting that blockchain was “one of the greatest inventions in recent history.”

“Crypto, in my view—and here he pointed at himself—is about innovation, crypto together with blockchain is an operational model that makes possible certain qualities, such as authenticity, uniformity, identifiability, and a tremendous flexibility or, if you will, extraterritoriality,” he said.

The current system “has physical limitations,” the soldier continued, adding that as “different kinds of cryptocurrencies come into being, and become more widespread, they will be bolstered by a usefulness that permeates society.”

Those factors would make “crypto even more reliable, increasingly embedded in global society,” the soldier argued.

As “louder explosions beyond the trench where they lay” came in, he shifted and paused, steadying his tone.

“So let it be crypto money,” he said, “it makes no difference what you call it, money’s a matter of faith.”

The idea becomes clear, “as we witness the birth of the crypto world,” the soldier said, adding that “in the future, capital and value will be action-based—the model already exists in crypto.”