ENCRYPtED WhiTE sToneS & VERIFICaTION
Revelation Chapter 2:17
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”
Revelations is a mysterious book with some verses that seems to make very little sense.
Q: Why do we need names? A: To identify ourselves.
Same reason nature opted for us to have uniquely identifiable faces. But a name no one knows except him who receives it? Why would you need that?
When you are born you have very little in the way of personality and character. Doctor exclaims, “It’s a boy!” First verifiable identifier is recognised. One newborn baby looks very similar to another. For that reason they can accidentally be mixed up and given to the wrong mother at the hospital. But if the mother knows that she birthed a boy she would immediately know something is amiss if she gets handed a newborn girl. Gender is important as the first verifiable, unique identifier of the new being.
The newly confirmed male child gets issued a verbally spoken and symbolically scripted identifier. This identifier is known as a name. Name and surname please. These identifiers are of little consequence to the being who knows only feelings of pain and sensations of comfort. The survival of the biological spawn is dependant on the instinct to suckle and the tendency to cry at slight discomfort. This is the language of human instinct to cry and suck. As the toddler develops it starts to respond to the vocally repeated identifier (known as a name) to the point where it has been sufficiently trained to respond to the verbal enunciation of it. When you call for someone you are evoking hope that the entity being called to will respond by coming to your physical location so that you can share or enquire information. When the summons is answered by presence you maintain connection not by repetition of the name but by eye contact and directing conversation to the face of the person. The face being the most accurate point with which to verifiably establish identity.
In the book of Genesis Jacob is able to fool Isaac (His father) by exploiting his bad eyesight to steal an inheritance blessing from his older brother Esau. The face of Jacob was obscured through Isaac’s blindness which gave a false signal to the issuer of a blessing.
As our proverbial John Doe grows up he develops a personality and character which allows for people to gauge the levels of trust they are willing to risk on him. Character and personality are also unique identifiers. Mother knows best at who will be diligent when keeping their rooms clean and whose rooms she will have to clean for them. She can through experience predict outcomes using knowledge of character and personality as a reference. This information is valuable and can only be established or measured when there is an ongoing relationship where trust and responsibility are continuously tested and stressed.
We all have identifiers that are publicly displayed wherever we go.
: Physical appearance, Wedding ring, Tatoo
We have identifiers that represent or address us verbally and textually.
: Names, titles, seals, signatures, handwriting et cetera.
Ambiguous identifiers
: Left handed, smoker, married, divorced, affiliations, church, political views, phone number, address, favourite colour, drivers license ad infinitum.
In this digital world our identifiers are all exploitable by a large number of unidentifiable bad actors. This is weakness. If you are a man of character and strength but have no control over your identity. You are weak and defenceless in the eyes of these virtually indistinguishable, androgynous scammers, fraudsters, monopolies and governments.
We have to take digital sovereignty over our digital identities. That means we have to train our minds in the establishment of truth. The truth being...
Be true to thine self and let the truth about you be established by you. That means abandoning trust in third parties and know that no one is coming to save you and protect your personal data. Like there is no spoon in the matrix, there is also no institution who loves you enough to protect your identity in a digitally encrypted world. In some cases they might be legally obligated to, but who will take responsibility and how do you quantify and reverse the damage of leaked information. You don’t. No justice for the slave.
The spoon is a lie. It simply does not exist.
Revelation Chapter 2 verse 17
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”
If you have an identifier that only you know about then you have a private key. You can verify your holdings of assets. You can prove your identity on nostr. You can own not only the data but prove you are the source of it.
Anything that a trusted third party is currently doing for you, analog or digital is systemically being open sourced and you could do it for yourself with the press of a button. All you need is a white stone with a name on it no one else knows and be willing to carry the responsibility. You could then selectively reveal yourself to the world and prove it is you without exposing the you that is private. I will give an example to help you understand the power.
John 19:31–42
31 Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
One thing is certain, Jesus was verifiably dead. The Romans, Jews and disciples who were present at the execution and burial all concurred. He is dead. Deceased. Gone from the realm of the living. Roman soldiers were veritable experts at death and declaring the dead so.
A few days later some disciples were proclaiming excitedly about Jesus being alive. A certain guy named Thomas would not be had. You guys are crazy, trying to establish some weird cult by pretending a fantastic impossibility. Nope. They were adamant. He lives. They claimed, like a bunch of fanatics. Thomas, being the voice of reason says the following.
John 21:25
25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Thomas was a real Bitcoiner. He does not trust, he verifies.
Verification in progress.
The body of Jesus, should he have been alive will have been littered with scar tissue all across his back and legs. It would have been easy for Him to selectively reveal his identity to whoever he chose by exposing his body and letting them verify the proof of his identity without doubt. No one in world history has ever committed suicide by flogging and crucifixion so you cannot even fake or repeat it if you wanted to commit identity theft and pretend to be the Christ.
A proof of work hash in history so profound that civilisations collapsed on the realisation of its profundity. Another consequential exposition of identity verification is also expounded on by the gospel accounts.
Matthew 24:5
“For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.
Eric Cason on the "What Bitcoin Did" podcast said that he thinks Bitcoin is a messianic event. I agree with him. Liberation from economic tyranny is messianic if a figure initiates the salvation process.
That would suggest that there will be messianic implications, namely identity fraud of messiah with the intent to deceive and extort.
Matthew 24:23
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ Do not believe it.
We have ourselves an example of this in Craig Wright who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Yet he refuses to verify it by transferring Genesis bits. Like Thomas demands to see the scars of crucifixion so too must we demand to see on chain movement of Genesis coinbase block reward as proof of identity and proof of work from anyone who publicly makes a claim to the person of Satoshi Nakamoto. Historic records in the future might mark this dispensation, BWP (Before white paper) and ASN (After Satoshi Nakamoto) or something of this nature could stand in the annals of history, marking a era of mankind similar to BC, Before Christ and AD, anno domini, the year of our Lord.
Jesus is yet to give me a secret name like Satoshi already did.
Which leaves me wondering…
The simulacral spectre created by Satoshi is an ongoing rabbit hole,
I have no doubt.
...