Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Bitcoin
I've mentioned in recent months that, after years of struggling to figure out what on earth crypto was good for, I finally hit upon the truth: it's a gambling token. Pure and simple, it's a new way for people to get their gambling ya-ya's out of their system, and by all measures it has been tremendously successful, since the combination of the Internet and the blockchain has created the world's most vibrant casino.
Indeed, the animal spirits take all kinds of forms. Most recently, the notion that ETFs would push Bitcoin to a million dollars (by 2030, according to Cathie D. Wood, and in "weeks or days", according to Samson Mow) cranked the price of BTC much higher as the big day approached.
Of course, in one of the great "sell the news" events of financial history, BTC has become blown to pieces, starting with the moment those ETFs were rolled out. The level of surprise about this should be precisely zero.
As a medium for gambling, crypto has simultaneously become a godsend for every kind of charlatan, come-on artist, and fuzzy-haired ostensible crypto-genius on the planet. And sometimes godsend means literally, as the tale of Eli Regalado and his wife have hit the wires.
So let's all set aside what's incredibly obvious and just assume the charges against them are blatantly and totally false - - and, who knows, maybe even conjured up by Beelzebub himself! - - here's the thumbnail:
- Eli is a convicted felon who served prison time;
- He found Jesus;
- He started a church of some kind;
- At the absolute peak of crypto mania, the fall of 2021, he put together a new enterprise to sell a Christian-community-focused crypto coin called INDXcoin;
- They sold something like $3.2 million of them;
- He took $1.2 million (which he admits straight up), using hundreds of thousands to pay taxes and about $300,000 for a home remodel which, straight from Eli's mouth, he tells us that God told him to do. Because, let's face it, heavenly father was sick of that ratty old kitchen after all these years. And Jesus thought the place could use a bidet, since it's more hygienic.
- The one and only place to sell INDXcoin, which is an exchange they themselves created, has been shut down (supposedly due to technical issues), so no one can get out
- Thus, the equivalent of the SEC for the state of Colorado is suing their divine asses.
The still image of his video (nice thumbnail, by the way) is below, but if you want to hear his rather hilarious explanation, feel free. It's quite the study. Honestly, go watch it. You won't believe your ears.
I was expecting the comments beneath the video to be a tidal wave of people saying what a crook he is and what idiots his followers are, but, on the contrary, all the positives are glowing, supportive, and positive. And it makes sense, because this ain't YouTube - - it's his own platform. And I've got a hunch some moderation may be at play here.
Even comments which SEEM critical (see below) are, in fact, decrying the fact that it's people on the outside that are the problem. (Naturally, Pastor Eli hasn't mastered the distinction between a contraction and a possessive pronoun, which is pretty much a universal problem in our once-great republic).
Here's a screen capture of Mr. 'n' Mrs. Christianity on some program or another with, I would suppose, another man of the cloth. It's pretty damned sickening, but one should never underestimate the gullibility of folks.
I took a look at the INDXcoin white paper, and it's quite the hoot as well. Here's a snippet, in which they highlight one of the many advantages of INDXcoin (as if the exclusive content of listening to Eli and his wife chit-chat on videos for coin holders wasn't enough) is that it uses an AI-based (of course.....) data procurement mechanism to calculate the average price of the top 100 cryptocurrencies.
That's smart. I know that when I am dividing the sum of 100 numbers, I'm not going to go at it alone. I need AI at my side.
This is, in my estimation, unvarnished horseshit.
What's hysterical about the above is the insinuation that by taking the average of the top 100 coins (which, let's admit, are pretty much 1.0 correlated) it extracts the volatility from the equation. So, sure, bucky, Bitcoin's 81% VIX and Ethereum's 94% collapse are nasty, but we can get you away from such scary stuff with our AI-based-number-divider.
Jesus H. Christ, people!
Without one hint of irony, this was another opportunity they used to hawk their wares. The program is called, and I'm not taking this up, Wealth Transfer TV.
Mission accomplished, I'd say.
I am highly, highly confident of a few things:
- This is going to be a slam-dunk for Colorado, particularly since brainiac already admitted, on video, that he took the money;
- The ostensibly Christian "investors" aren't going to see their cash again, or at least will lose most of it;
- This kind of scam is going to keep going on and on and on until.........well........God knows when.
