A KosherCoin for your thoughts

DR HAYMAN TASSSEN PhD

Goldstein has always been at the forefront of innovation, having launched the Sinai Indaba Hotel and the internationally acclaimed Shabbos Project, where people who usually keep Shabbos get to take off one Shabbos a year.

Last year, the value of a Bitcoin skyrocketed from $700 (R8 147) per coin to nearly $20 000 (R232 779) per ounce. There were people davening all through Rosh Hashanah, praying for the digital currency to hit the magical $18 000 (R209 501) mark.

“Many claim there is evidence in the Gemara”, says Goldstein, “that the initial coins in Purim mishloach manot were actually a crypto coin launched by Queen Esther.” Esther may have been governor of the central bank of Iran, an olden-day Gill Marcus, for want of a better description.

Goldstein rushed his ICO to market in order to beat the RebbeRuble, soon to be release by Rabbi Masinter of Chabad during next week’s Miracle Drive, where people who have never driven a car before, are suddenly able to drive.

The genius of Goldstein’s CryptoCoin is: The more you daven, the more the value of the KosherCoin increases. Apikoruses will immediately see the value of their KosherCoins crash like Steinhoff shares.

Says world-famous “Cryptoman” Ran Neu-ner: “This is one of the biggest scams we have ever seen. It will fit perfectly into the world of blockchain.” Blockchain is the technology underlying cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and operates in accordance with strict halachic principles on a decentralised model with little control, just like the rabbinate.

Explains Shaun Matisonn of Discovery Vitality: “The KosherCoin will attract value every time you eat a kosher meal or phone your mother.”

Property genius Herschel Jawitz has decided to invest all of his newborn son’s barmitzvah money into the KosherCoin. It’s a big challenge for Jawitz because every time he falls asleep during a rabbi’s drosha, the value of his son’s KosherCoin reduces by 18%. “It’s an investment in our future,” says Jawitz. “Property has been a great investment but now, we have a much better Ponzi scheme to invest in.”

Crypto mining magnate Dina Diamond says mining has always been in the Jewish blood, just like high cholesterol. Many of the earliest Jews came to South Africa to work on the diamond mines and gold fields. At one point, even the Oppenheimers were Jewish. It’s just a small skip and jump to move from diamond mining to crypto mining. “Mining most crypto currencies requires an enormous amount of computing power and electricity, but the KosherCoin requires mitzvah and mazel,” says Diamond.

One of the biggest questions is whether the KosherCoin can be traded on the holy Shabbos. The official halachic Poisek on Bitcoin, Benjy Porter, says KosherCoin can rise in value during the holy black-out days, but no trading will be allowed until three stars are clearly visible in the crypto universe. “There is a reason that the main South African crypto exchange is called Luno,” says Porter. “It’s from the heavens created on the first days of creation.”

Many believe that Luno is short for Lunacy and that the KosherCoins will move in a trading range that will make rand currency traders even more white-knuckled.

The Bitcoin founder is a mysterious character who goes by the shadowy pseudonym Rabbi Satoshi Nakamoto, and whose net value came close to $20 billion (R250 billion) during the peak of the Bitcoin bubble. Says fellow mythical Rabbi P Shpiel: “If you take the gematria of ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, you come to the same numerical number as ‘Mordechai’ – and that’s why it is so auspicious for the Chief Rov to launch KosherCoin during the festive Purim season. “And besides,” says Rabbi P Shpiel, “something is needed to pay for the costs of the Sinai Indaba.”