About this blog

Welcome!

The obvious thing about me is the love of Pizza. Straight from the kitchen, hot, sprinkled pepper, onion rings, mushrooms, complemented with a well dressed meaty cheese finish, makes my hunger forces of destruction weak. 

Then comes the traditional white kilombero rice. Cooked on charcoal, paired with a local chicken and green vegetables accompanied by a bowl of well fried tomato sauce, aha! Such is the taste for an African man who has affection for Bitcoin. 

Speaking of Bitcoin, here is how it all began. In 2015, on an obscure sunny morning, a friend who i highly regard Kumbukani Kachingwe born with a silver spoon in his hands, out of the blues asked, " What do you know about invisible governments?" I was honestly taken by surprise. The question never really made any sense. However, the conversation ended me having a summary of "The History of the money changers" a book by Andrew Hitchcock 2006. 

That same day in the afternoon, i began reading the book. The opening introduction and the first ten pages were like a harmer that swag hard against my brain. It was literally shattered. There was no broom to sweep the pieces. I was in awe and shock of how it exposed the inner workings of our monetary system. How economists sale us the idea of a " the business cycle" and the book's timeline proved it.  

It was the exposure of this book that opened my mind. It  dropped a reason in a poor of confusion. I had never really understood what money is or where it came from. All i saw is that for some reason it seemed to work. As i kept digging the rabbit hole, It unveiled historical time lines and how "money changers" arose from goldsmiths to kingpins and how they took control of what we know as "money" and "money supply" the creation of "booms" and "busts" and eventually, "the business cycle."

The book became my diary. The more i read it, the more i felt the words and over time, i developed a deeper understanding of what really our money is. This book also led me to one of the greatest mental expeditions. I began to relearn and unlearn some of things i understood about money. It was a pure reset for the mind.  

Then in 2016, i heard of Bitcoin for the first time. I recall viewing breaking news of Bitcoin's price on the British Broadcasting Cooperation televesion channel. The price was on a rally, racing towards a thousand dollars. Interestingly, the headlines came as a siren warning, to view Bitcoin as a speculative bubble. 

Danger signs were shown, the charts were appealing and the investors saw this as a very high risk asset similar to a ponzi scheme.  Bitcoin's price was just too good to be true. This was the modern  dot com bubble and other reports compared this phenomenon to the price of gold in the 1970's and 80's. No one believed it, it was pure pseudoscience to establish a hypothesis of gold breaking $ 700 price as a separate market commodity. 

Well gold did the accounting for the expanding currency supply. It was that moment that i realized i had more than six senses. The curiousity drove the mind like a mad man. I had to do it, i rushed and unplugged my old HP Probook 4540 on the bed. I knew what i had to do.

The college library was not very far from home.  There was free wifi and the journey began with click. The Youtube webpage opened at flip of a notebook page and there i typed, " Bitcoin." The first result brought me to a presentation done by Andreas Antonopoulos. It was a presentation in Malaysia where he presented his book "Mastering Bitcoin" and "The internet of money." 

The orange pill was prescribed and the light was clearer.  The rest, became a walk in the park. Then, came across the work of "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency technologies" by Hedeki Kiyoko and the audio transcribed by Mattheus Gombush. I was immersed in another world of Bitcoin knowledge. 

What set a solid concrete foundation was the work of the legendary Bill Still. A journalist, a historian and an economist who documented the " The history of the money changers." Then came Mike Miloney an author, Gold and silver historian and an economist, "the hidden secrets of money" series and his book "A guide to investing in Gold and Silver." Such was an amazing jounrney, it has in all ways inspired me to create this blog page.  

Malawi Bitcoin Bench is the garden of oranges and Bitcoin. It will not announce the price of Bitcoin in "Joachim Thallas." Rather It is a blog page that documents the Bitcoin orange pill journey in Malawi from education initiatives to real stories of use cases of Bitcoin and it is changing lives for the better. 

The page features articles, real time interactions and shared opinions that eventually will reveal the ultimate reasons why Malawi must consider oranges and model a decentralized approach to finance, similar to Bitcoin. The reality is, our economy is dying patient. It has excess loss of purchasing power of its currency and the inflation soles are all over its body failing to lay on its own sick bed. The talk of International Monetory Fund and its dollar aid as a cure is simply a remedy for disaster that has time and again proven a failure as it simply hides symptoms of a dead economy. 

Are there any slightest chances of survival? Would we need an oxygen concentrator? a CPR for resuscitation of this dying economy? I think it starts with these spaces.  

It is my dream that an indigenous native Malawian can store, send, receive HODL value in Bitcon. This will be bad news for Banks, Airtel and TNM but who needs middlemen to dictate all rules and get a cut for every single transaction? 

Ill surf using my personal intuition, engaging with humor and employing best analogies and orange pills as far as Bitcoin is concerned. It is my wish for everyone to grasp slightest gist of Bitcoin knowledge. 

I always encourage everyone to develop and maintain an open mind to everything, for our journey into this realm is to learn without limitation until we wear out. It is  important to follow that  inner voice that speaks. That trickling curiousity, those unfiltered questions, engaging in boardless, censorship resistant, fearless conversations with endless imagination. Maybe one day, we can get to the lands beyond the firmament. I know you would want to visit see beyond, are you not interested? 

Lets move Mulanje mountain together, pour Lake Malawi into a cup and bring back sound money, free people and make Africa boarderless. I'd like you my reader that after you read this blog, your teeth and skin turn orange and develop your own intuition and look outside again!  

Mwalandilidwa, khalani omasuka!