http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS11E9TheBitcoinEntanglement
Plot
When Leonard, Raj, and Howard try to make a bundle on old bitcoins they had purchased, Sheldon tries to teach them a lesson for cutting him out. Meanwhile, a seven year old videotape reveals a secret regarding Leonard and Penny's relationship.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Between Sheldon's revenge plotting and Leonard losing his keychain years ago, no one winds up with any Bitcoin in the end.
- Artistic License – Economics: A lot of dialogue and apparently plot points about Bitcoin in this episode is inaccurate.
- Howard says a single Bitcoin is currently worth about $5000. The worth of one whole Bitcoin was $10,000 at the time this episode aired, but of course this episode was written and filmed months in advance before airing.
- Sheldon claims that Bitcon is "a new online currency that’s been developed. It’s just like actual money, except you can’t see it, hold it, or spend it on anything." Not true. You CAN spend Bitcoin on particular items should the merchant allow and accept Bitcoin as currency (though Sheldon may have been referring to the fact that not a lot of merchants accepted Bitcoin at the time).
- Sheldon worries that Bitcoin can get you harassed by the IRS over the phone about tax implications. The IRS never calls you over tax implications, they send you a certified letter. The concept that the IRS will call you over tax code misfilings is a hoax made up by IRS scammers predominantly from India (Raj's homeland).
- Artistic License – Engineering:
- Back in 2010, Leonard and Howard used a programming software and easily mined a whole bunch of Bitcoin in a very short amount of time, apparently only a few seconds got them multiple coins. However, the average CPU (Central processing unit) back then could only build a small amount of coins over a slow and long period of many days.
- Stuart says he's going to clean out the entire Batman USB (filled with Leonard's Bitcoin) then sell it for $10. Stuart would need a password to wipe the data because bitcoins are encrypted. Stuart most likely sold the Batman flash drive to somebody while the drive still had the Bitcoin on it, meaning the drive was not properly wiped out.
- Leonard is somehow able to transfer the Bitcoin from Howard's laptop (lagging in pace thanks to all the Asian fetish porn that Howard downloaded) into his own laptop with relative ease, and Sheldon later reveals he transferred the Bitcoin onto one of Leonard's flash drives. This is nearly impossible; transfer of Bitcoin is made deliberately challenging so that it can't be stolen by someone else. Easy-to-read Bitcoins are not stored and transferred onto a hard drive so as that Bitcoins can quickly jump from one computer to another. Instead, private keys (random encrypted characters) are what's transferred. These private keys are very important to write down lest you risk losing your Bitcoin forever. At least in the first case, it may have been that they never actually mined anything on Howard's laptop and just decided to re-build the program on Leonard's due to Howard's being so laggy.
- Awesome, Dear Boy: In-Universe:
Howard: So, let me get this straight: We have to write an elaborate program in order to find a fake coin that we can't spend on anything?
Sheldon: Yes.
Howard: That sounds fun.
Raj: Yeah, I'm in.
Leonard: Staying up late, writing code... Sounds like a party!
- Commitment Issues: A Flashback explores more of why Penny broke up with Leonard back in season three. They end up finding a web video she made while drunk where she confesses that she knew the next step with Leonard was going to be marriage and she was seriously considering it, and that prospect terrified her.
- Ear Worm: Seven years ago, Raj had a Kesha song stuck in his head. At first this is the only thing he can remember from seven years ago. Now that he remembers the song and half-sings it, he risks it getting stuck in his head again.
- Flashback Episode: About half the episode takes place seven years earlier.
- Gone Horribly Right: Sheldon lets the other guys run on a wild goose chase as revenge for cutting him out of the Bitcoin. He intended to let them find out the Bitcoin wasn't where they thought it was, only to reveal It Was with You All Along because he moved it to one of Leonard's flash drives. However, Leonard reveals he lost that drive years ago, meaning Sheldon got more revenge than he bargained for.
- Ironic Echo Cut: Stuart claims that he helped the guys mine for Bitcoin, and so he wants "his" cut of the wealth. Turns out that 7 years ago, Stuart refused to lend a hand because he was asked to provide snacks for them as they mine but he declined saying that's too rich for his blood.
- It Was with You All Along: Sheldon reveals that he took the bitcoins and uploaded them in Leonard's Batman keychain USB drive, so they had it with them the whole time. Unfortunately, Leonard lost that drive years ago.
- Nosy Neighbor: Zack admits to being a "huge snoop". It's how he knows about Penny's video on the laptop, and that his neighbor is currently in the shower.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Zack mentions that he never got rid of the laptop Penny gave him since it was a gift, completely unaware that Leonard had gifted Penny the same laptop some time beforehand. Leonard hangs that fact over Penny for a few seconds.
- Photographic Memory: When Leonard's looking for his old laptop that might have the Bitcoin and can't remember where he left it, Sheldon boasts about his eidetic memory: he remembers that Leonard gave his old laptop to Penny. Sheldon also remembers that Penny, back then a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory, brought him a turkey club even though he ordered a burger.
- Shout-Out:
- To Avatar: Seven years ago, Raj really liked Avatar. Now he's complaining they're gonna make four more Avatar movies and the first one wasn't even all that good.
- To Kesha, whose 2009 hit "Ti K To K" has wormed its way into Raj's heart.
- Unusual Euphemism: "Science" and "music" are the terms Howard uses to refer to the porn on his laptop.
- What Does She See in Him?:
- A male-to-male variant. Zack says Penny only dated him because he reminded her of Leonard. Leonard can't see any similarities between himself and Zack outside of them both being people.
- A straighter example occurs between Penny and Sheldon while Penny made the video explaining why she broke up with him. Sheldon claims Leonard already knows and that the video he (Sheldon) really wants to see is why Penny went out with Leonard to begin with.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Not entirely, but about half of this episode involves flashbacks to seven years prior when the characters did some bitcoin data-mining as they retrace their steps to find where they kept the bitcoin files. This involves interweaving a number of established moments of the series such as Penny and Leonard's breakup, Penny and Zack dating and a previously unknown encounter Penny had with Amy before they officially met.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: In The Stinger, it's revealed that the Batman flash drive containing the now very valuable bitcoins was accidentally left in Stuart's comic book shop; he wiped the drive and resold it for ten dollars.
