Bit of Wealth

It behoves one to regularly check an email account’s junkbox. Mine sometimes places therein messages from friends and family as well as organisations from which I actually want to hear. Mostly, though, it gets it right. There does seem to be trends in the junk-email world. Whereas once we were inundated by urgent requests from Nigerian widows and Viagra distributors, the purveyors of Bitcoin now fill their place.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which means it is entirely online and subject to no central bank or government. In one respect, it’s just like regular capital, little more than figures on a screen. I’m disinclined to engage with this fiscal development, however; I’m neither wealthy nor venturesome and it may just be the latest bubble. I also wonder why, if it is so lucrative an exchange, its adherents spend so much time and energy sending me junk emails. Still, I looked up Bitcoin UK, an official purveyor and platform of exchange. It offers the following advice to potential investors:

Create backups of your private keys. 

To protect robbery, fire, or hard drive failure, we recommend to keep a backup of your private keys kept off-site.

Never give your private keys to anyone. Giving another person your private keys is the same as giving them access to your bank account.

Mobile and Desktop Wallets: Keep your offline and online wallets up to date with the latest software. This will ensure they are as secure as possible.

Guard against fire, theft and loss of keys? This sounds rather familiar and old fashioned, sage advice a banker might have offered in 1950 or even 1450. This doesn’t even include the risk of the currency losing value or collapsing altogether. It goes to show that all worldly wealth, be it stored in chests of gold, coils of copper, mills of steel, shares, gilts, bonds, shoeboxes-of cash-under-the-bed or even the bitcoin, can be lost as easily as sand through the fingers.

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 1 Timothy 6:9

No matter how innovative and cutting-edge the store or source of wealth, the Bible’s ancient wisdom remains as true as when it was first written.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay