Hell of a Currency!

Move over, Bitcoins!

A big chunk of humanity still does not know what bitcoins are but it is well acquainted with another super sophisticated currency that is much more potent and that reaches even farther!

Bitcoins are border less but they need computing devices to perpetuate their movement.

But 'this' particular currency, also border less, does not even need those damn machines and connectivity!

It comes in copper, silver and gold. Receivers use the money to buy stuff they yearned for, right from a bottle of booze to Merc, BMW...u name it!

Some of them supposedly use this currency to bribe the keeper to let them loose from you know where...

Unlike bitcoins, this stuff is peculiar in the sense that a single massive exchange of hands happen usually only once a very year, on the 15th night of seventh month in case of China, though there are exceptions.

Actually this currency is better regulated than bitcoins though both are border less. It has a Governor and a Deputy. People actually are dying to meet them!

Welcome to the world of Dark Money' aka Hell's Bank Notes...and...the Ghost Festival!

East and South East Asians have this long running custom whereby they use currency denominations printed in a particular form of paper (known as Joss Paper) that is embedded with copper / silver / gold foils, to help their long dead 'dear and near ones' buy whatever they need to make their lives easier in netherworld.

People burn this currency in a ritual with the belief that it reaches their ancestors safely through fire and air, to help them buy stuff from the bazaars of heaven and, occasionally, freedom from Hell! 

Christian missionaries burned this idea into their consciousness that only Christians go to heaven and non Christians to hell ('see, we built them this way'!). Those unfortunate East Asian non christian souls boiling in the furnaces of hell designed by Dante lap up these dark currencies to bribe the gate keeper to let them sneak out! :See, you can only try to convert us but not our street smartness...er...hellishness' :-)

Some of these folks are smarter; they short circuit the bazaars of heaven by burning up a model of a Merc or BMW, Versace Suites or whatever their ghostly dears wanted, after sticking up liberal currency notes on the models :-)

In return, those ghost whisperers are supposed to bless their earthbound descendants with health, wealth and prosperity. 

This is a serious business running into millions of bucks, real, tangible bucks.

Customs are 'Custom Made', ain't they?!