Be early or be entertainment
Cate was on that ledge before the office had a logo. If you heard about it from the same place as everyone else, you aren't the trade — you're the volume.
The legend
Nobody has ever seen his eyes
He turned up one winter outside a trading office in a city nobody names anymore — a small brown tabby sitting on the ledge of the window with the screens, watching six men lose money in real time.
He watched them for eleven months. He watched them buy the top because a stranger told them to. He watched them hold a dead chart for four days because selling would have made it true. He watched them round-trip a life-changing number back to zero, then do it again the next week with a different ticker and the same face.
One night the office went dark for good. In the morning there was a black cap on the floor with a currency symbol stitched on the front, and there was no cat.
He surfaced on Solana a while later, cap on, eyes shut, wearing the exact expression of someone who has already been to the bank. Nobody knows what he bought. Nobody knows when he sold. The only evidence is the face.
People kept asking him to open his eyes and look at the chart. He never did. Why would he? The chart is for people who still need something to happen. Cate isn't waiting for anything.
He isn't smiling because he thinks it's going up.
He's smiling because he already got paid.