Topic: Mastercard

El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender in September 2021, a move estimated to save the nation $400 million annually in remittance fees. These savings come at the expense of major financial institutions like Visa, MasterCard, and Western Union. The discussion explores how third-world countries use cryptocurrency to bypass the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The discussion moves to the financial phase of the global agenda, where Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are linked to compliance apps. Gordon White highlights partnerships between Microsoft, Mastercard, and Gavi to trial climate change credit cards that restrict purchases based on carbon impact. He views the current medical mandates as a "ritual of compliance" designed to prepare the population for a managed, technocratic economy.

In Tanzania, a pilot program assigned blockchain identities to pregnant women and their unborn children to track prenatal care compliance. This project, involving Mastercard and the Bill Gates-backed Better Than Cash Alliance, serves as a case study for digital identity. The program demonstrates how humanitarian aid is used to test surveillance technologies on vulnerable populations.

James Alford recounts a humorous but significant story from Hattie Bov's papers titled "The Sale of Shirts," which describes an invite-only event in 2006 where the Golden Billion could purchase flesh suits for 1.5 billion dollars. This purchase allegedly granted continued access to the reincarnation program via a "cell phone link to God." Alford mentions a manual titled "How to Communicate with God" by I.N. Janicki as a subject for further research.

Bitcoin is framed as a potential global alternative to Visa and MasterCard, appealing to the same tech-savvy generation that adopted Google over AltaVista. The discussion highlights the high-risk, high-reward nature of being an early adopter in a network that could either become a global standard or become worthless.