day 1114: Bitcoins

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal."

If you have never heard of a Bitcoin, you are not alone. Bitcoins are an internet currency that was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, who is believed to be a hacker.  Bitcoins replace cash on the internet as a virtual currency. According to a recent article in Businessweek, "There are 10,952,975 Bitcoins in circulation". What is most fascinating to me is that Bitcoins have value but there is no central bank or holding place that makes this determination.  Bitcoins are valued on trust and move around the internet without regulations or policies. There aren't people sitting in a room deciding what the value should be. All that said, there is a real value and today that appears to be about $80/Bitcoin.  Somewhere else I read an anecdote that in the early days of the Bitcoin a group bought a pizza, that today would be valued at $1.1MM.  You just never know.  That is the lesson of the BitCoin; we never know what will have, hold and increase in value or what will ultimately end up as worthless.  We make these decisions each and every day as we invest and decide against good ideas and bad ones. Just because we missed the Bitcoin, doesn't mean there won't be another one just around the corner.

We can never know what will hold value, except for one thing, and that is why Jesus told us that treasures that we store here on earth will come and go.  But, we also know that the treasures that we store in heaven are safe and multiplying. This is the time of the year when many companies are determining what the annual bonuses from last year will be and payout is coming soon.  Bonuses and compensation can be a source of excitement and a source of disappointment. Our challenge is in how we will react and how much of our personal self-worth that we associate with these payouts.  If we are allowing this relationship between the two to be influential in our emotions and actions then it might be that we are storing our treasures in the wrong place.  Let's consider that we should be valuing and storing our treasures in only one place, that place being under the management of One who only wants the best for each of us.

Reference: Matthew 6:19 (New Living Translation)