Welcome back, Pilgrim. Here’s what’s happened in town since you’ve been away…
Welcome back to the Reformer Newsletter, where we can take a dive into various projects and activities from around web3 and across the Christian community. You have joined this network to contribute to our collective mission of building for Christ’s Kingdom, and we will use this newsletter as a platform to encourage that.
We want to remind everyone that the crypto and web3 space is still wild, and can be dangerous for those exploring. Practice good digital security, do your own research, and keep an eye out for fraudsters. Nothing here is financial advice.
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put in writing:
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel— he is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
Ezra 1:1-4
After decades in captivity under the successive empires, the Hebrew people saw the prophecy of return and restoration to their Promised Land home fulfilled. They could return home, and they could begin to rebuild. This return and rebuilding is covered by the chronologically overlapping books of Ezra and Nehemiah, with certain Psalms also written to celebrate the triumph.
There are many lessons to glean from this history of rebuilding and restoration, and we should read and pray on both the positive and negative leadership models shown in Ezra and Nehemiah. An explicit point in this narrative is the proper order for restoration- first the exiles built an altar to offer sacrifices to the Lord (Ezra 3:1-7), then they rebuilt the Temple and gave praise to the Lord throughout the project (Ezra 3:8-13), then they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3-4). Each of these phases is beset by troubles, changing administration and backstabbing, and all sorts of human-generated setbacks, and the Hand of the Lord is with the people to guide them through it all.
Today we are looking at a “rebuilding” cycle in the web3 world. How might we apply the lessons of the returning exiles as we seek to restore this industry and build for God’s glory?
Around Web3
Late last week Coinbase announced the launch of their Base blockchain. For better or worse, this could be huge news for the world of expanding crypto technologies and web3. At a time when centralized institutions have nearly burned the crypto landscape to the ground, it’s worth covering a few notes about this blockchain:
This is a Layer 2 chain, meaning that it can handle high volumes of transactions independently, and then rely on Ethereum to actually take care of the final settlement. This ideally keeps Ethereum free from multitudes of transactions while also reducing overall gas prices, all while leveraging the security of the Ethereum network.
Specifically, Coinbase opted to use the open source development stack from the Optimism foundation. This is a new-ish blockchain (it went live in the spring of 2022), and they focused on creating developer tools to encourage this.
Finally, and very explicitly, there is no current plan for this chain to have a native token, meaning we are not awaiting the drop of a BASE token. This is important, since so much of the 2022 collapse stemmed from the ponzi-structures of the TERRA/LUNA and FTT tokens. Personally I’m hoping they learned that lesson, but we will wait and see.
This whole project fits the grander Coinbase narrative- to be a bridge between traditional finance and DeFi by providing a low barrier to entry for all things crypto (my own paraphrasing, not theirs). I’ve been impressed by their products so far, and I hope this has the power to shift momentum in crypto.
Are Bitcoin NFTs becoming a reality? Dubbed “Ordinals”, these NFT-esque products actually sit on the immutable bitcoin blockchain, with each inscribed on a single Satoshi (1/100,000,000th of a BTC). For some more technical details and analysis, check out this video and this article.
Around the Community
Speaking of Ordinals, I am very excited to share a project in action from a Reformer community member. Crypt0jt has recently locked away in the digital Wartburg to inscribe the BibleOrdinals on the bitcoin blockchain. This means that these transcribed Scriptures have been “etched” into the immutable and non-censorable digital ledger. From the builder:
As everyone was rushing to put pictures and other stuff on, I wanted to get the Word of God up as quickly as possible.
Due to constraints in size and the associated costs, the project had to focus on the New Testament only— for now. If you want to support building, sharing, or contributing to this project you can check out their Twitter and Discord to connect.
I’ve been to the Library of Congress and seen a 500+ year old Gutenberg Bible, but I wonder… how long will this inscription of the Scriptures last?