The inner city Mempool is a public swimming facility in Baltimore where, in the 1960s, Joe Biden worked as a lifeguard. It is the Bugleverse’s rendering of Bitcoin’s transaction queue as municipal infrastructure: a clogged-up place where neighborhood kids swim up to make “low fee and lightweight Ordinal Inscriptions” before they get into the blocks, and where order is kept by whoever is in the chair.

Documented history

The Mempool’s only chronicler is President Biden, who described it as “a clogged up and tough gig,” terrorized by local tough Cornpop until Biden brought peace to it — a feat he offered as the governing model for blockchain policy: “We need to come together and make sure that everyone has a chance to make their Inscriptions and contribute to the Bitcoin blockchain” (Joe Biden Brings Peace to Inner City Mempool). Prolonged exposure to its chlorine fumes is the leading audience theory for the President’s speech patterns.

irl: The mempool is Bitcoin’s real holding area for unconfirmed transactions, newly congested in early 2023 by Ordinal inscriptions; the pool is Biden’s real Wilmington lifeguard story relocated to Baltimore. The pun is the whole bit.