Isaiah stated in the Tanakh, “Your silver is fake, and your wine is watered down.” -Isaiah 1:22.
At this point in time, Isaiah lived in Jerusalem during the latter half of Israel’s kingdom and was speaking with the leaders of Jerusalem and Judah on God’s behalf. He was warning the leaders of their corruption and that this corruption against God’s commandments would have dire consequences. Among these sins, Isaiah emphasizes how Jerusalem, once the holiest place in the Jewish world, has been reduced to a city that is now “a whore” and “full of murderers.” It lists amongst these grave sins the aforementioned watering down of wine and commissioning of fake silver. This is an ancient sign that watering down and corrupting money has been seen as a religiously unrighteous act. In the next verse, Isaiah says “Your rulers are rogues, and cronies of thieves, every one avid for presents and greedy for gifts.” This implies that the ruling class had been using the system of watering down the money and wealth as a means of enriching themselves and their cronies.
This injustice implies that there was a time in which the Judean empire was operating off a more holy basis, relatively speaking. It used to be an empire in which sound money reigned supreme. This system kept the corruption and greed of the leaders at bay. However, once the leaders realized they could exploit this system of sound money for their own gain, the once holy city fell into moral depravity following the actions of their so-called “leaders.” Therefore, righteous leaders can decide to step aside and let sound money rule. However, most so-called leaders decide to corrupt sound money and lead themselves and their people down the path of destruction.
This is by far not the only example of this happening. In fact, the term “sound money” likely came from Ancient Rome, where small pure silver coins were standard in everyday commerce. As the Empire sought to expand itself and uphold its vast welfare system, Rome began a system of debasement. This process ultimately cut the silver content of their coins from pure silver to only 5% silver. However, this made morale fall significantly in the Roman empire. Roman soldiers did not want to risk their lives expanding the empire for worthless metals. As a result, after the fall of sound money, the Roman empire fell shortly thereafter as it sunk into an almost endless cycle of moral decay and cronyism.
Fast forward to today, America is the biggest empire in human history. It was able to reach these heights through the adoption of sound money and the comparatively strong protection of property rights. However, over the past 100 or so years, the American empire has abandoned the use of sound money. It instead opted for what the leaders of the Judean and Roman empire did, thus leading to predictably similar results.
However, the biggest difference now is humanity finally has a system of sound money that is impervious to the susceptibility of debasement. Cryptocurrency is a transparent system of money that cannot be inflated or manipulated. One Bitcoin will always be one Bitcoin. Bitcoin is strong enough to withstand the corrupting influence of greedy leaders that would seek to enrich themselves off of the collective voluntary interactions of others. This money will succeed where silver and gold failed as a means of exchange as it is impossible to “clip coins.” Cryptocurrency operates on a ledger that is viewable to every person regardless of their profession or level of wealth or influence, making it impossible to debase like gold or silver. This technology can be used to prevent this type of corrupt currency debasement from happening ever again. Cryptocurrency provides moral people a tool of righteousness at our fingertips. It is our duty as those that advocate morality and for a better world to actively push that vision forward and with cryptocurrency. It has never been this easy to retain this level of morality in our money. As we say in Judaism, Aleinu, or “it is on us” to use this righteous system of money so that we do not repeat the mistakes of Rome or Judea again. I encourage everyone to use crypto in their daily lives and divest their lifeblood from this immoral system.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.
