On the dot, Mufti. Where are the others?
Via BBC: Egypt's main Islamic leader issues a fatwa against Bitcoin.

Sheikh Shawki Allam, the Grand Mutfi, said the digital crypto-currency carried risks of "fraudulence, lack of knowledge, and cheating".

The Grand Mufti said risks could arise because the virtual currency was not subject to surveillance by any centralised authority. "Bitcoin is forbidden in Sharia as it causes harm to individuals, groups and institutions," the fatwa said, as reported by Egyptian daily Ahram

In August 2017, Egypt's first bitcoin exchange was opened. The crypto-currency was declared illegitimate by the authorities last month.

Precisely right, Mufti. "Harm to individuals, groups and society" is the key point that nobody else has dared to speak.

Natural Law is crystal clear on speculations and gambling of all sorts. Value comes from labor. Wagers are permissible ONLY if they are specific investments leading to more real production. More life, more value, more beauty. Investing in a farm or factory and receiving part of the profits is a good use of money, but ONLY if you are taking the risk of losing your investment when the farm fails.

Bitcoin is worse than previous bubbles because it doesn't even PRETEND to be based on real value. Tulips and houses and grain and gold have real uses or real beauty. They fulfill a purpose. The trading loses sight of the original purpose, but occasionally helps to develop a resource.

Bitcoin has exactly zero purpose. The "mining" process consumes VAST quantities of electricity. What does it yield? Precisely nothing except a "solution" to a set of calculations that didn't need to be calculated.

If the calculations were done as a service for a real business, such as optimizing routes or trying out chemical formulas, they would represent real value and would be worth whatever the business wanted to pay for the service. I'm pretty sure no business would pay $15k for a few hours of heavy calculation.

But the calculations are EXPLICITLY POINTLESS..... unless, of course, Bitcoin's real boss is simply farming out its own decryption math without paying for the service. Supposedly these calcs are related to cryptography, which is NSA's business.

The worst harm is the waste of power. "Miners" often operate in countries where electricity is sparse. They use up MASSIVE AMOUNTS of coal or oil or natural gas that would otherwise serve NON-CRIMINAL purposes.

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Where are the other religious leaders? Google doesn't find anything for "pope bitcoin" or "archbishop bitcoin". "Buddhist bitcoin" leads to this item about a set of fashionable Western Buddhists who claim that they are using blockchain to boost Buddhism in some way that doesn't even make superficial sense. In other words, just another fraud.

If Antichrist Bergoglio really meant ANY of the toxin he spews, he would be issuing an edict similar to the Mufti's fatwa. Bergoglio claims to be on the side of the poor, claims to be pro-life. Like all pure speculations, Bitcoin harms the poor above all. The harm is specific and quantifiable as loss of electric power. If Bergoglio meant any of his screeching about "global warming" he'd put out an infallible encyclical against Bitcoin, the fastest-growing consumer of coal.

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Later: Checked the rapture visionaries on Youtube. These folks tend to be closer to God than anyone else in the West. Mixed results. Some are treating Bitcoin as a mark of the beast; others are trying to horn in on the trading by using Rapture as a brand, just like the abovementioned Buddhists. You want a MARK? You want a standard measurement or assay to distinguish God from Beast? There it is.

Later again: I'm surprised Babylon Bee hasn't done a parody on the subject. First Baptist Church changes its sign to First Blockchain Church, gets $10 billion in new tithes....

Labels: Asked and unanswered, Carbon Cult, Metrology, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:21 AM