Believe in Jesus Christ with faith alone and be saved. Thus, everyone will believe in Christ Jesus and go to Heaven.
Psalm 145:17 "The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.
First off, we must always trust the Lord more so than we trust in money. However, there are those who have been scammed by investments that have damaged their family, so this message is a warning to them.
Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency,
Ezekiel 18:13 Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
Today, I talked to someone in real life who mentioned ?Bitcoin?. This isn?t the first time as there?s other people in real life who?ve also mentioned ?investing in it? I?ve been following Bitcoin news for years so here are my thoughts.
I personally avoid investing in any sort of cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is associated with cyber crime, like people hacking your personal information and asking for ransom money in return. Bitcoin, or any sort of cryptocurrency, are dangerous like other investments because you can put your money in it and lose it all. It?s much more volatile, as in, fluctuates due to price changes, than regular investments.
Many families have been destroyed because one person decided to invest all their savings in bitcoin (BTC), only for the market to crash and they lose all their money. Family members have given other family members poor financial advice and they end up investing into something that loses all their principal.
Proverbs 11:29 Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.
In Canada, I?ve seen Bitcoin ATM?s pop up, where you can put money into it and get ?Bitcoin?. Imagine a person who doesn?t know about ?Bitcoin? sees this ATM and puts their money into it, thinking they saved all the money they worked hard for, only for the value of Bitcoin to suddenly crash and they have no more savings.
Bitcoin has no inherent value on it?s own, we only assign it value. A good type of investment is one that physically helps people. For instance, I invest my money into the construction of a school that will educate children. That is good. If one puts their investment into Bitcoin, there is no physical value there. It?s like buying a ?Non Fungible Token?, NFT of a digital artwork. You?re not buying the artwork, you?re buying a receipt of the artwork, so you don?t own the artwork when you buy it, you have some a string of characters and numbers that tell you ?own it? digitally. So don?t get scammed when someone offers you an ?NFT? of like, the Mona Lisa or some collector?s sports card, you?re not actually buying the object my friends XD.
There are many people who invest into Bitcoin because they are greedy and only wish to get money without helping anyone.
Hebrews 13:5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ?I will never leave you nor forsake you.?
Additionally, the process behind a ?blockchain? is overly complicated. As a person who practices Accounting, a ledger that you can?t remove the entries from sounds like a hassle personally. As a person who practices Computer Science, the technology damages the environment and contributes to climate change. And you spend money on transaction fees for purchases if you try to use it as an actual currency.
Now, we can?t even buy a regularly priced graphics card because people are wasting electricity ?mining? for Bitcoin with hundreds of computers sitting around doing nothing. There are people who need to hear about the Gospel that Jesus Christ saves all through faith alone!
There are some Bitcoin exchanges which are straight up scams. They say they?ll get your money and exchange it for Bitcoin, but they steal your money and don?t give you anything in return, leaving their website blank! Unlike actual financial institutions and banks, there?s way less accountability. They can literally take your money and just? leave. And because it?s all anonymous, it?s extremely difficult to track them and get your money back.
Pump-and-dump schemes are common amongst new coins, where scammers purposely create a coin and ?pump? up it?s value, advertise it amongst celebrities and social media influencers, and then ?rug pull? aka ?dump? aka sell of their artificially increased stocks at a profit. And the people who bought these artificially increased stocks are now stuck with nobody to sell it to, and then the stock ?dumps? down in value where it?s worth close to nothing, essentially meaning all their money is gone.
There are many ?Nouveau Riche? which means new rich in French, those who suddenly gained a lot of money from Bitcoin, and then end up buying all these rich things, only to not have enough money to cover the bills and they go bankrupt. Or Bitcoin scammers who are fined by the government or going to jail for their crimes.
Proverbs 20:21 An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end.
Mutli-Level-Marketing Programs (MLM), aka Pyramid Schemes, should be avoided too. They scam the money from those at the bottom, those who came in late, and give it all to the few early adopters. And they?re left ?holding the bags? so to speak. As in, they?re left with a stock now devalued to just a penny stock.
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Like certain forums of day-trading, there are those who ?leverage? aka go into debt to buy more investments, which is very very dangerous! Not only do you lose all your money, but now you become a slave to the lender! When it?s so incredibly risky that it essentially becomes random chance whether you get something or not, it becomes a form of gambling, which can become an addiction for some who drain all their money and waste it on nothing.
Someone can save as much money as they want, but the only thing that truly saves us from sin at the end of the day is faith alone in Jesus Christ! It doesn?t matter if you have many or little savings in your bank account, even the smallest amount of faith in Christ Jesus washes us away of all our sins!
Heb. 2:9 "Jesus, was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone."
Even smart people can get scammed. Because avoiding scams requires wisdom, and there are many people who are intelligent, but not wise. Isaac Newton was a very intelligent man, yet he lost a lot of his money by investing in the South Sea Company?s stock bubble.
https://www.lutz.us/financial-market-update-11-10-21/
Or some people found rare ?tulip bulbs? and sold them to others at a higher price. And those who bought it at a high price wished to sell it at an even higher price! Until you?re left with someone who?s stuck with nothing to sell it to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
The amount of money we have can increase or decrease, but no matter what, the Lord is always with us. Thus, trust in the Lord Christ Jesus with faith alone and be saved my friends! Everyone will be saved. It doesn?t matter how rich someone is or how poor someone is, they will be saved by believing in Jesus Christ and everyone will go to Heaven.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
GIC?s, Guaranteed Investment Contrasts, are very good protections against the value of your money deteriorating due to inflation, because you are guaranteed to obtain at least your principal investment, and then some extra money as interest to. However, this interest is oftentimes lower than the inflation rate. For example, the inflation rate is 2% a year, and the interest rate is 1% a year. You would not make a profit, but a loss, however it would be a much smaller loss than if you simply left your money sitting in a savings account. This is a good way to avoid going into debt. For many, the price of food is increasing due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, so it?s important to save enough money to be able to provide for the well being of your own money.
Psalm 15:5 Who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.
Since anyone can post anything on the Internet, do not get manipulated by what people say online. Read Bible verses about financial advice before making financial decisions. Online, some websites might tell you to ?HODL? or ?Diamond Hands? (holding stock), ?To the moon!? or ?Bullish? (implying the stock will soar high), but many of these are from spam bot accounts, to make you think it?s more popular than it actually is.
Overall, avoid get-rich-quick schemes. And avoid going into debt as much as possible, because a person who owes money to a lender is a slave to that lender. Believe in Jesus Christ with faith alone and be saved. That is what frees us from the slavery of sin. Thus, everyone will become believers in Christ Jesus and go to Heaven.
Proverbs 28:20 says, ?A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.?
Proverbs 13:11 Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
Believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. Thus all people will go to Heaven, whether or not they invest in ?cryptocurrencies?. Even though the whole world will be saved, we still should protect the world that we have right now. The pain that people feel, the suffering they go through, that?s real. That?s my motivation to spreading the Gospel of Christian Universalism.
1 John 2:2: "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."
Legally, I do not give any advice when it comes to the usage of cyptocurrencies and other Bitcoins. There?s a lot of political talk and legislation, regulations about it as shown by this article:
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-regulations-in-2022-taxes-laws-and-licenses/
I make this post to highlight the negatives and dangers of using bitcoin, as a warning to people and to protect them from scams and harm. I say these words with kindness.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are flawed in the sense that it damages the environment in three aspects
1) The ?creation? of Bitcoin, mining by solving complex math problems with computers
2) The trade of Bitcoin between different user and the usage of Bitcoin in financial transactions.
All of these create massive carbon emissions as showcased by this article by the Columbia Climate School
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/09/20/bitcoins-impacts-on-climate-and-the-environment/
1) University of Cambridge analysts have estimated that bitcoin mining consumes 121.36 terawatt hours a year
2) Financial transactions of Bitcoin are harmful to the environment because as statistically it is said that Bitcoin is thought to consume 707 kwH per transaction.
This article also demonstrates how massive electricity use of Bitcoin is, bigger than the entire country of Ireland! Imagine that electricity going towards treating people in hospitals with urgent need for medical support.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/27/bitcoin-mining-electricity-use-environmental-impact
Ironically enough, Bitcoin is made to be a digital version of the gold standard, yet as an Oak Ridge Institute paper reveals, one dollar?s worth of bitcoin was equivalent to 17 megajoules of energy, more than double the amount of energy it took to mine one dollar?s worth of gold, gold and platinum. At least that energy would go towards something tangible, with more of a defined use. Gold and silver is used in the production of phones.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161017-your-old-phone-is-full-of-precious-metals
I?m puzzled when I see posts advertising Bitcoin restaurants. Do you really want to wait 15 minutes for a transaction to process longer than a VISA, waste more electricity than a VISA and cost more than a VISA? Like? we have a digital currency that?s way more efficient! That?s why when I refer to ?bitcoin? I refer to cryptocurrency. Look my friends, if you want to get technical with definitions, a ?bit? is just a unit of information for computers and a ?coin? can be a currency, so you could make an argument that having digital USD in an online bank is like a ?bitcoin?, so to clarify, when I say ?Bitcoin? I mean BTC the stock.
There?s a lot of ways to Google (Or duckduckgo, the search engine I use, doesn?t have the same ring to it like ?Google? lol) for others
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=donating+computer+processing+power&atb=v344-1&ia=web
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2247149/data-center-12-cool-ways-to-donate-your-pc-s-spare-processing-power.html
Just to list a few better uses of electricity than cryptocurrency transactions:
Climateprediction.net can forecast extreme weather alerts to warn people in advance!
IBM World Community Grid researches into cures for influenza, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, childhood cancer
MilkyWay@home creates dimensional models of galaxies to discover how they?re formed
LHC@home helps physicists develop and exploit particle accelerators.
Enigma@home for decrypting wartime messages
NQueens@home for solving chess problems
BURP for rending 3D animations
Einstein@home for detecting gravitational waves
GPUGrid.net to perform simulations on proteins
AQUA@home for quantum super computers
Medical Research: https://www.washington.edu/news/2006/04/05/donate-your-unused-computing-power-to-aid-medical-research-through-rosettahome-project/
Literally, we could be curing cancer? or using up a town?s electricity supply for no net benefit. Discovering the secrets of the universe through science? or destroying the environment for no net positive. My heart aches imagining all the electricity that was used on Bitcoin, when it could have instead been used for these causes!
Isaiah 41:17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
Interesting side tangent, it turns out they?ve created puzzle games where people can solve molecular puzzles that have baffled scientists! The benefit of video games.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/gamers-solve-molecular-puzzle-baffled-scientists-6C10402813
Protein folding by the University of Washington: https://fold.it/
As well, they?ve used AI to help detect illnesses much earlier! The benefit of Artificial Intelligence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210820135346.htm
And even for predicting earthquakes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6w5SidfdIg&ab_channel=Capgemini
All of this electricity could be used for supporting these amazing processes? or they can wasted by a few people trading the same crypto coin back and forth with each other to make it look like there?s a lot of trading for something when they?re really isn?t.
Economically, there?s the opportunity cost. Climate change, world war 3, recession, there are many issues harming us. But we can help researchers is by donating idle time on our computers.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God
The problem with Bitcoin is that it takes away computer power, electricity, that could have been used to help people medically, to help advance important scientific research, to save people from natural disasters. Fiat currencies have their own problems, look at the Zimbabwe dollar and the massive inflation that affected it because they were able to print out as much money as they wanted, but there are more pressing issues, better uses of our electricity.
In the future, when everyone has become a believer with faith alone in Jesus Christ, with all people saved, then there will be no waste. Everyone will be saved, 100% of all people. And, even though all people will be saved eventually, it?s not a waste to evangelize, because by soulwinning and telling people about this truth, it eases their minds. It gives them relief. I can say personally that my mind was in anguish for being trapped in the false beliefs of ECT and Annihilationism, and Universal Reconciliation gave me such a wonderful relief, that just imagining other people feeling that same relief is my motivation to spread the Gospel.
1 Corinthians 15:22: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."