Tangle Samuels, left, Eric Chennells, centre, and Leo Weese, right, sit in the DCTRL members area, on March 9. DCTRL is an anarchic meeting space for bitcoin enthusiasts in Vancouver.Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
For more than a decade, hackers, digital anarchists and cryptocurrency luminaries have descended through the mouth of a whale into the basement of a decaying Edwardian building in downtown Vancouver.
It’s not just any whale. The basement staircase of the 116-year-old Tiedemann Block was painted in ironic homage to the Bear Whale – a legendary speculator who, in crypto lore, tried to sink bitcoin in 2014 by placing a large sell order well below the market price.
Tangle Samuels, a member of…
