VR

WHAT CHANGES IN A HEADSET

On a screen the machine is a picture you turn around. In a headset it has a size. You keep your own height and it stands as tall as a building, so the parts stop being diagrams and become objects you can stand next to: the mempool tank over your head, the mining bench longer than a street, the chain of blocks running off into the dark. Nothing else changes. Same site, same readings taken from the network while you look at them.

HOW TO GET THERE

You need a headset whose browser supports WebXR: a Meta Quest 2, 3 or Pro will do. Open visualizebitcoin.org in it, exactly as you would on a laptop. A VR button appears at the bottom of the screen. Press it and the hall is there at full size. Nothing to install, no account, and that button only exists where a headset is really present.

THE VISIT, OR THE HALL TO YOURSELF

A door is standing in front of you when you arrive, with both offers written on it. Take the visit and Satoshi speaks at thirteen stops, in your language, with no caption in the way. At each one you are already facing the part, everything else goes dark, and the machine CUTS to the next stop instead of travelling there: nothing ever moves you, so nothing can make you ill. Push a stick hard at any point and the hall is yours again. Refuse the visit and it is yours straight away.

THE CONTROLS

FLY

left stick, you go where you look

LOOK

your head, nothing to press

TURN

right stick left and right, smooth

UP AND DOWN

right stick forward and back

FASTER

either grip, held

CHANGE SIZE

B, three scales

IF IT FEELS LIKE TOO MUCH

Turning is capped and answers to the square of the stick, so a thumb resting off centre no longer sends the room spinning, and a half turn takes about two seconds. The guided visit never moves you at all, it cuts. If flying still feels fast, press B: the bigger you are, the slower the hall goes past, and the machine becomes something you look down at instead of up.