**Florida Man Tries to Pay Bills With "RSA Country" Currency, Gets Absolutely Wrecked by Local Economists**
Look, we all know Florida is the place where common sense goes to die and resurrects itself as a meth-fueled alligator. But even by Florida standards, one guy from the Panhandle just tried to do something so monumentally stupid that I’m pretty sure his ancestors are filing a class-action lawsuit to disown him.
Meet Dale “Bubba” Johnson, 34, of Tallahassee. He’s the kind of guy who probably unironically calls himself a “sovereign citizen” and thinks his Toyota Camry is a diplomatic vessel. But last week, Bubba leveled up his delusion to legendary status: He tried to buy a week’s worth of groceries at a local Publix using “RSA Country” currency.
Yes, you read that right. RSA Country. As in, the system of encryption keys used to secure internet traffic. Not a country. Not a real currency. Not something you can trade for eggs, milk, and a box of cheap wine.
But Bubba, in his infinite wisdom, printed out a stack of “bills” he designed himself. They looked like Monopoly money drawn by a toddler on bath salts. Each bill featured a giant key icon, a block of binary code that didn’t actually mean anything, and the words “ONE RSA UNIT – BACKED BY THE HASH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE’S DATABASE.” I’m not making this up. He actually thought that “hashing the Fed” would make his fake money legally binding.
According to the police report, Bubba rolled into the Publix at 9 AM, slapped a stack of these “RSA Units” on the counter, and said, “I’d like to pay for these frozen pizzas and Monster Energy drinks with a secure cryptographic transaction. You can verify the signature on the blockchain.” The cashier, who has probably seen more Florida Man bullshit in a day than most people see in a lifetime, just stared at him. When she told him it wasn’t real money, Bubba got furious.
He started lecturing the poor cashier about the “Ninth Circuit’s ruling on lawful money” and how “the Federal Reserve hasn’t been audited since 1956” (both false, by the way). He literally tried to explain that his homemade money was “more secure than the dollar” because it was “mathematically verifiable.” I died. I actually died reading this. This is the kind of energy you get when someone watches one (1) YouTube video about cryptography and immediately declares themselves a financial revolutionary.
When the store manager asked him to leave, Bubba started calling for a “public trial” and claimed the store was “violating his contractual obligation by refusing to accept a valid tender backed by a public-key infrastructure.” He posted his “terms and conditions” on a piece of paper he had taped to the back of the bills. I’m not kidding. The terms literally said, “By accepting this currency, you agree to be bound by the laws of the RSA algorithm, which supersede the U.S. Constitution.”
The police arrived, and Bubba tried to argue that he was just a “sovereign individual” and that they couldn’t arrest him because “the police are a private corporation.” The cops, who have seen this exact scene 5,000 times, just laughed. They arrested him for attempted theft and disorderly conduct. He’s currently in jail, probably trying to pay his bail with “DSA Units” (different algorithm, same stupidity).
But here’s the part that makes this a true AITA post for the ages: Bubba’s mom, Linda, defended him on Facebook. She wrote, “My son is a brilliant visionary who understands the corrupt banking system. The store just wasn’t ready for a new currency. He’s ahead of his time.” Ma’am, your son is behind the times. He’s behind the times of the 17th century when we still bartered with beads. He literally tried to pay for groceries with a math problem.
The thing is, this isn’t just a funny story about a Florida Man. It’s a symptom of a much dumber, more widespread problem. We have an entire army of people who think that just because they can name-drop “RSA” or “blockchain,” they’ve somehow outsmarted 10,000 years of economic history. They think a “smart contract” is a substitute for a job. They think “decentralization” means you can ignore taxes. Newsflash: The government doesn’t care about your private key. They care about their money. And their money is legal tender. Your “RSA Unit” is the electronic equivalent of a used napkin.
To be fair, the cryptobros on Twitter are having a field day. Some are calling Bubba a “hero” of the “free money” movement. Others are laughing at him because he used RSA (a public-key cryptosystem) instead of something “cooler” like ECDSA. Imagine being so deep in the sauce that you gatekeep which type of fake money someone uses to commit a crime. “Ugh, RSA is so 1990s. He should have used Ed25519. What a noob.”
The real kicker? Bubba’s “RSA Units” weren’t even secure. A local cryptography professor looked at his design and immediately cracked it. Turns out, his “private key” was literally the word “password” hashed with MD5 (which is broken, by the way). So even his fake money was insecure. This man tried to launch a financial revolution using a code that was considered weak in 1995.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “This guy is an idiot, but it’s Florida, so whatever.” But here’s the thing: This is America. We have a problem with people confusing “mathematical novelty” with “legal tender.” You can’t just invent a new currency because you don’t like the government. You can’t print your own money and call it a “
Final Thoughts
Having spent years covering the global push for digital sovereignty, I find South Africa’s RSA—its national cryptographic standard—both a pragmatic necessity and a dangerous paradox. While it’s laudable to insulate critical infrastructure from foreign surveillance, the reliance on a single, aging algorithm for national security creates a brittle monoculture that hackers can study and exploit at their leisure. Ultimately, the country risks trading one form of dependence for another, and without a transparent, adaptable cryptographic roadmap, this digital fortress may prove to be a gilded cage.