
I’m not involved in the crypto market, because I really don’t have the means to invest in it. Being old means I spend most of my money on beer and medical co-pays. Apparently, though, it is greatly inspirational to at least some of its investors, particularly Tomer Strolight, who became convinced that Bitcoin was the invention of God, so much so that he converted to Christianity in a full-immersion baptism off Miami Beach.
Now I may not know much about bitcoin, but I know plenty about Jesus. Catholic Jesus, that is. He redeemed us by letting Himself get crucified, and we ate His body from the tender age of about six or so in order to thank Him for that. We didn’t really get to drink His blood—that was reserved for the priests, and in my altar boy days I noticed many a member of the clergy starting off their day by bolting down a half-bottle or so of His Blood.
Catholic Jesus was held up as an example of forgiveness and love to us Papist tykes, although He wouldn’t lift a finger if you accidentally chewed gum before Communion, which condemned you to Hell. So, okay, a tad shady, but that ran in His Family, particularly in the Holy Ghost, Who has spent all of eternity without a visible source of income.
Not chewing gum before Communion is not a tenet of the Church anymore, but unlike some states that have legalized weed, and pardoned people who were once convicted for owning it, there is no Catholic retro-forgiveness program that will let in you into heaven, once you’ve committed a childish mortal sin, and failed to confess it to a priest, which you were too frightened to do because, hey, some of them were pretty angry drunks. So, I’ve been on my way to Hell since I was ten. Any other sins I’ve done since that damning piece of Juicy Fruit have been a bonus.
Protestant Jesus is fairly similar, I think, except He wants you to go to church all day Sunday. That was enough to keep me and my dad Catholic, along with everybody else who liked football or had a yard to mow.
Bitcoin Jesus inhabits a whole new spiritual realm. As Tomar puts it, “The more I studied it, the more I realized that this (bitcoin) is an incorruptible system,” he says, “that this is a system that has justice built into it through math and truth…This is the genius of God.”
But bitcoin, somewhat like the airplane and the nuclear reactor, was definitely invented by a person. That person calls himself “Satoshi Nakamoto.” No one thinks that is his real name, but he has never claimed divinity. He (or she—could bitcoin Jesus be trans?) hides behind that pseudonym because he/she is probably rich enough to own his own island, where he has a private chef for every cuisine he enjoys and beautiful Polynesian girls to fan his/her* genitals with palm fronds when it gets too humid in the South Pacific.
And if bitcoin ever fully crashes and burns, and all the secular investors in crypto are wailing and gnashing their teeth in the outer darkness, their net worth reduced to that bucket of nickels on their dresser, Bitcoin Jesus believers will still keep the faith. They will wait for the Second Coming of Bitcoin.
Even if it takes 2,000 years.
*Probably being unnecessarily politically correct here. Crypto for sure sounds like a guy thing. Tell a woman you're giving her crypto instead of a diamond and you'll be swiping right again in no time.