Should we buy some Bitcoin?

BITCOIN has been all over the news lately. I mentioned it as a good investment earlier this year. It is the most popular cryptocurrency around; some (usually jealous bank managers or those with a hidden agenda) call it a bubble or a ponzi scheme; but most financial experts hail it as nothing but an ingenuous, secure, virtual electronic currency that is taking the world by storm. One can subscribe to sites like www.cryptocoinsnews.com and find daily market optimism from many diverse financial gurus, people such as Russia’s Pres. Vladimir Putin or Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and Facebook Millionaire who invested in Bitcoin, calling it the ‘Ultimate insurance policy against value destruction.’ In South-Africa Pick n Pay now accepts Bitcoin as payment method, and in Mexico the world’s first physical Bitcoin Agency opened this past week (really replacing to a large extent the need for traditional banks; or Forex wiring exchanges such as Western Union).

Over the last year Bitcoin’s value rose from $648 to today’s $5261. That’s a whopping 711% increase in one year! Way back in May this year when Bitcoin was up to “only” $1,600, the first investor in Snapchat, Jeremy Liew, as well as Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain, predicted that Bitcoin could hit half a million dollars per Bitcoin by end 2030. That’s more than 9,400% over 13 years, or on average 723% per year. Trace Mayer, podcast host and entrepreneur, predicts an increase to $27,395 in four months’ time. Remember right now it is around $5,261. That is an increase of 420% over only four months! www.longforecast.com has a more conservative prediction of 266% increase over the next four years, or an average of 67% per year. Whether the figure is “only” 67% or a mammoth 723%, the outlook seems promising.

What perhaps interest me more though is the technology upon which Bitcoin is built, i.e. the Blockchain. Wikipedia describes it as a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. Once data is recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which needs a collusion of the network majority. So they are highly secure by design, which makes them suitable for the use as a digital currency, or the recording of activities such as as identity management.

Aah, this brings me to the Bible- Rev 13 talks about the ends times, where a person called “the Christ” by society, but “the Antichrist” by the Bible, will cause all people, small and great, rich and poor, “to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell” except he that had the mark… Rev 13:18 then tells us “Here is wisdom…(the number is) 666” By the way: why hand or forehead? Well, think of the cashier at your local shop. The hand is the most obvious body part to scan. But one can lose your hand, or be born without one. If your forehead is gone you die. Another incidental remark here- Verse 18 talks about wisdom . Not everybody applies wisdom. Most Christians even have no idea what the possible implementation of the number 666 could be. Or they are sceptics, saying that it is “purely incidental”. Only the wise will accept this jewel of a prediction.

Now back in the early 1980’s already Dr. Mary Stewart Relfe, who holds a Ph.D (I think in Economics if I remember correctly), wrote two eye-opening books called “The New Money System: 666”, and “When your Money fails.” In it she described and explained how barcodes, which today is found on just about every single product that you buy in the supermarket or elsewhere, contains the number 6-6-6, either in clear view or in hidden form. Although it is now some 35 years later I will still highly recommend reading these fascinating books. Barcodes stood the test of time, and no-one winks an eye about it anymore. It is used for stocktaking, and yes, identification purposes. So unless you believe it’s pure coincidence that this number contained in all barcodes, is exactly what the prophet John predicted 2000 years ago, you will realise it must somehow form the basis of the “mark of the beast”.

Ever so often articles appear about its application for storing medical data or governmental identification. On this website you can read one describing, for example, how the US government wants to put microchips in the foreheads of all new babies. The justification of easy identification, tracing in event of disappearance or terrorism etc are usually used. Which in itself is all good and well, but not only is it the very process God forbids in His Word (Rev 14:9,10) “…if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God…”, common sense tells you that it infringes privacy like nothing else.

Now back to cryptocurrency- the amazing speed at which “cryptos” such as Bitcoin and others are being accepted worldwide (which is one major factor that pushes up their value) makes me SEE with my own eyes how the world is indeed pushing towards a cashless society. Banks are already panicking as this virtual currency, which is completely decentralized, is taking over as payment system. It is faster, cheaper, safer and much more convenient. It can be done via any smart-phone or computer linked to the internet. It can be bought or sold internationally online without having to go through a tedious, expensive forex process.

Here comes the interesting part- how BARCODES and CRYPTOCURRENCY are linked:
When using bitcoin (for example) to pay at the point-of-sale or for a face-to-face transaction, there is the problem of how to communicate the means of receiving and distributing the bitcoin to the respective buyer and seller. In the modern world, we typically use “pull” based transactions when using our credit/debit cards to process a transaction. We ask the network to pull the customers data to verify authenticity.

A bitcoin address is just data, but it is between 27 and 34 characters so that is way too much info to expect the person paying to have to manually type in, for any type of face-to-face manual transaction.

A modern barcode can easily represent this amount of data in a machine-readable manner and do so reliably. The barcode can contain other information as well — such as an amount needed for purchase, and possibly a message and other fields and criteria as well.

So with a MOBILE DEVICE (cellphone) and an “APP” (application), a convenient way to pass that data is for the payment recipient (e.g. a merchant) to display a barcode with the Bitcoin address for the transaction, and then for the person paying to scan that barcode to obtain the bitcoin address.
Nowadays pretty much every mobile device has a camera built-in, so using this technology and utilizing smart phone’s cameras allows this to be much easier rather than typing very long Bitcoin account address. If you have wallet in your mobile phone and you want to send money to someone they can email you the barcode and you will be able to scan it quickly with your phone and send the money. Without that you would have to type in on your phone the whole Bitcoin address, so the first method of transacting bitcoin would be tremendously simpler, than this method.

The same goes to receiving Bitcoins: you can easily send a barcode to someone. If you make face to face transactions with Bitcoin you can exchange Bitcoin addresses just in few seconds, thus allowing the user to not type a rather large Bitcoin address, and instead utilize the power of barcodes.
Now- if all people also have their cryptocurrency and identity information (and GPS!) on a microchip stored in their own hands, it makes the process even easier and faster, with almost no risk of fraud, especially identity fraud.

The only problem is of course it is a major INTRUSION OF PRIVACY, since whoever (government or AntiChrist) controls such microchip databases also controls You. They know exactly who you are, how much (crypto)money you have, what you spend it on, where you go at any moment. You become a subject of the SYSTEM OF THE BEAST, instead of subject to GOD.

CONCLUSION
What we mustn’t do is EVER take the microchip on the hand or forehead.
What we can do (and I recommend it here) is to USE cryptocurrency as an investment vehicle, especially now while it is still decentralised and can even be obtained or used anonymously. Buy some and hold unto it. You might just become a millionaire fast. I believe we will see eventual regulation by governments, as is already happening in China and elsewhere. Governments don’t like events they can’t control. So they will try and implement regulations such as KYC (know your customer- usually implemented by giving your bank/ credit provider/ identity keeper a copy of your ID and an utility bill that shows your residential address). But until then- BUY SOME BITCOIN 