When A Lame Super-Villain Created Bitcoin 40 Years Ago!!

This may not seem too strange to us today...

...but obviously it was a noteworthy thing in 1976!

So, they probably forgot to mention this in history class:

I guess it really was "mad money!"

The JLA rounded up the ill...

But, yeah, what about the economy?!?

Don't worry--top men are on the problem!

OK, that's as close as they were gonna get to "crypto-currency" during the Ford administration.

And it's probably faster than that damned chip!! Ammirite, folks?!?

"Direct deposit"?!? What is this witchcraft?!!?

And nothing could possibly go wrong...

Uh-oh.

Because it turns out that "Dr. Dunkirk" is really...

See, the original money plague was all part of his master plan, so...

WHAT?!?!?! Where the hell did THAT come from?!?

See, that was all part of this story:

Sadly, nothing nearly as cool as those covers ever happened in these issues. Because, honestly, who doesn't want to see Hal Jordan get his ass kicked by a yellow giraffe?

Sonar tries to take advantage of the newly intelligent beasties, and use them to take over the country. But it didn't work.

We'll let Batman explain--this works best if you imagine him speaking with a Charlton Heston voice:

It's a madhouse!!! A madhouse!!!

Of course, animals never fought amongst themselves or ate each other or whatever before they got "human stupidity"...

Anyway, yeah, Earth-1 America got rid of all it's paper currency and replaced it with electronic money in 1976. And it was never mentioned again...

From Justice League Of America #131-132 (1976)