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I’m merging two seemingly unrelated topics: spirituality and blockchain technology. Last week we examined the definition of crypto (hidden) as it relates to God, this week we explore the blockchain.

Spirituality and technology are two camps that are both hoping for the arrival of a new world. The more we focus solely on technology, the more blind we become to that which is beyond it. On the other hand, many religious beliefs are embedded in doomsday narratives and evacuation strategies which distrust technology and progress.

If we diminish either side, the bigger picture is lost. There is a cosmic “Blockchain” from which blockchain technology has unknowingly emerged. Blockchain in integral to humanity.

Blockchain in it’s most simplest form is a peer-peer network not centrally managed by any governing body. According to Jacob William, blockchain is an anonymous, group of transactions that are a part of a common ledger entered in a database and verified by multiple sources.  Think of each user is as a link in the chain which has a unique “hash” (code) which encodes a precise sequence that is verified by other “links” in the chain. Thus the longer the chain, the more resistant to corruption.  Since no one person or group governs the ledger or controls the data, all participants share both the benefits and losses of anything offered on the platform. It decentralizes power.

Bitcoin is synonymous with blockchain but is not the only blockchain. It’s the blockchain technology that allowed a global currency such as Bitcoin and other crypto currencies to emerge without the oversight or intervention of a government or bank. Currency is based in trust, not gold, and the blockchain is more trustworthy than any government or bank, because everyone on the blockchain is a stakeholder, not just bank CEO’s.

Crypto is not a fad or passing trend. It’s a rising tsunami of disruption to the status quo. It’s power is subversion . This doesn’t mean it comes without risk. Volatility has made investors nervous, thus regulation is emerging which can either help or hinder progress depending on how well these play together. Nonetheless, institutions of power such as banking are nervous. Crypto will do to banking what the internet did to newspapers, or what online streaming did to Blockbuster video.

Blockchain is a platform that can empower the powerless. In the typical system, the cost of regulation prohibits the poorest or the “unbankable” from participating. Blockchain currencies receive all comers who then share the benefit and risk with everyone else. The more that enroll, the more secure it gets undermining institutional control or regulation that disproportionately disadvantages the poor. 

Blockchain is technology that will decentralize and revolutionize the worlds biggest problems such as smart contracts, healthcare, and all business transactions.

Those things that separate us now such as race, geography, governmental controls, income, education could possibly be eradicated by blockchain technology. Without governing bodies taxing, charging, and manipulating the masses with institutional politics, power plays, and threats, all the constituents move from solely being a consumer who funds the top few percent, to a consumer who is also the investor and benefactor of everything. The only people who lose are those who won’t participate, or who try and corrupt it.

Blockchain has the gravitational pull to create a world economy which is governed and verified by everyone in the chain. The New world is coming, in fact, its already here (Mark 1:15). This is not to say that corrupt people are not trying to corrupt the blockchain for the benefit of the few, or that it’s without flaws. While has the potential to radically transform our world, those in power are already trying to control access to it.

Don’t miss this vital thread of spirituality: blockchain technology could potentially be the rails upon which the promised New World emerges (Isaiah 65:17, 66:22, 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1). To miss the spiritual and prophetic trajectory here would be catastrophic. To view the blockchain through a flawed eschatology (study of End Times) would be even worse. Cryptocurrency is NOT the Mark of the Beast. 

Mark my words, well-meaning but misinformed people will say this is a count-down to armageddon. They will see the blockchain as a one-world currency (Revelation 13:17) that is limited to only those with the Mark of the Beast. I just spent eight weeks talking about what the prophetic kingdom would look like and its primary means was via subversion . Also I detail this in my series on End Times.

I view the Blockchain as Good News. It’s one aspect of the incarnate gospel.

• The blockchain is “Good News to the poor”: It gives everyone a equal seat at the table.
• The blockchain is the “Liberation of the Captive”:  It decentralizes the powers that oppress and control.
• The blockchain “opens prison doors”:  It creates opportunity from the bottom up, not top down.
• The blockchain can “bind up the broken hearted”: It can subvert corrupt powers that oppress and can usher in a world without such horror.
• The blockchain will “declare the year of the Lords favor”:  We can be hopeful about our future again. We can actually see the New World on the horizon.

For those without a bible background, I just quoted the Isaiah 61:1-3 from Jewish prophesy about the Kingdom of the Christ (messiah). It’s the same verse Jesus read in Luke 4:18 where he says “…today, this has been fulfilled in our hearing.”

The blockchain revolution is another unconscious expression of the revolution of the Gospel.  The story of God and creation makes everyone of us the original blockchain. Blockchain technology is the physical manifestation of the cosmic blockchain within us all. It’s the philosophy behind every effort at unity, restoration, and human rights. It’s a part of each one of us, as we link together, inviting us into a new kind of humanity which is bigger than any of its individual parts.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.“ John 17:22-23

Jesus’ prayer exposes the original blockchain. It’s one of connection, unity and based in love. It’s ingrained deep within all humanity. It’s heart cry of us all and why this new “phototrophic” technology is so attractive to us. We must steward the blockchain with wisdom for the benefit of everyone