When tasked with convincing students to invest in Cougar Cash not long ago, a team of distinguished BYU staff and faculty waged the entirety of their allocated budget on one wild gamble: 10,576,744 completely unimpressive, unashamedly store-bought, underwhelmingly-glazed donuts.

After donating a few of their lunch breaks, putting on ties, setting up a simple table in the WILK and giving out over ten million cheap donuts to literally anything that moved nearby, Cougar Cash has become one of the hottest crypto currencies on the international market. The currency has miraculously maintained an exact 1:1 exchange rate with the dollar and is completely nontaxable on campus. The donuts, in contrast, are said by most to be “sub-par,” horrifyingly unfulfilling, and “the reason I started working out.”

We asked BYU administrator Doug Johnson how he turned a simple meal plan system virtually overnight into what financial gurus are now calling “the next bitcoin.” His answer was unflinching and direct: “It was the cheap donuts. Students love free food.”