Question: How do you recognize a bubble that’s ready to burst?

The answer is twofold:

1. When people start going crazy over a certain asset—even the ones who couldn’t have cared less a year earlier.
2. When people start doing insane things with that particular asset.

For example, in 2006, I read that some homeowners were taking out home equity loans to purchase Super Bowl tickets.

Using your house as an ATM was just fine, because everybody knew that home prices would always go up. It was almost a natural law, like the sun rising in the East.

When I read the Super Bowl story, I remember thinking: This is going to crash.

That people were willing to risk the roof over their head to buy tickets for a football game (yes, even that football game) seemed to be the epitome of irrational exuberance.

This week, I had a similar A-ha moment when I first heard about Jesus Coin.

Decentralizing Jesus On The Blockchain

When you visit the website of this new cryptocurrency, it’s impossible not to think that it’s a hoax.

That’s because it started as one. Initially meant as satire by a group of friends, soon after its ICO launch, Jesus Coin started taking off as cryptocurrency investors scrambled to get a piece of the action.

The homepage states: “Jesus Coin has been developed as the currency of God’s Son. Unlike morally bereft cryptocurrencies, Jesus Coin has the unique advantage of providing global access to Jesus that’s safer and faster than ever before.”

The three main benefits of Jesus Coin are supposedly sin forgiveness through outsourcing, “record transaction speeds between you and God’s son,” and a predicted $50 billion market cap.

Jesus Christ is named as the founder and CEO of the company, with the positions of trustee and public relations officer being held by Judas Iscariot and Saint Peter, respectively.

The Jesus Coin ICO

Jesus Coin is compliant with the ERC20 Ethereum token standard. 1 Ethereum (ETH) equals 12 Jesus Coins (JC) in the initial pricing, and seed creation will be capped at 13 million JC.

The crowdsale spans roughly three and a half months, from September 12 to December 25. Trading is scheduled to begin on December 27.

The founders assert in their whitepaper that “Jesus would be pumped to have his own coin,” a notion that most Christians probably wouldn’t share.

After all, one of the few passages in the New Testament that depict Jesus as truly outraged is Matthew 21:12–13, where he overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple.

But whatever you think about Jesus Coin’s philosophy—if you can call it that—the main point here is that it’s as good a bubble-top indicator as I’ve ever seen.

As Cryptocurrencies Fail, Gold Will Pick Up The Slack

If you still doubt that the current crypto craze is unsustainable, look at this infographic contrarian analyst Jared Dillian posted in a Business Insider article on the “Everything Bubble.”

There are only 180 UN-recognized paper currencies in the world, but a stunning 1,072 cryptocurrencies… and a new one is added nearly every day.

Gold, on the other hand, has proven itself to be a timeless store of value. And the best part is, you can put it in your pocket or under your mattress—or bury it in your backyard if you’re so inclined.

In a recent Metal Masters interview, Real Vision co-founder Grant Williams said holding gold in his hand for the first time answered a lot of questions for him: “People get stuck in this trap of ‘Why does it have value?’ These are the wrong questions to ask because you’re driving yourself mad. It does. Pure and simple.”