‘Holy Bibles’ NFTs Ask You to Join the ‘Metachurch’

Jesus sees what you do in the metaverse, according to an NFT project that’s taking donations in exchange for JPEGs of fancy, gilded Bible covers.  

Holy Bibles NFTs joined the likes of Yanni, Crazy Frog, and jarred farts to try to sell the idea of becoming the biggest digital community of Christians—a “metachurch,” as the project put it in a tweet. 

The project’s FAQ states that to get one of their NFTs—a fancy Bible cover that looks like it was taken out of a Captain Bible scene—you can buy them on OpenSea or donate to the project through PayPal, then show the receipt in the Discord. They say they will then transfer an NFT to you. Supposedly, the donations go to charity. There is an OpenSea page for the Bibles, but only seven exist there and it’s not exactly a Supreme launch in there, having only amassed $120 in trade volume. The Discord is mostly dormant, and the Twitter account hasn’t been active since mid-April. Buying blockchain assets through Paypal is a red flag—but the donations are still active to take people’s money, despite every other social media and community space being inactive.

Like a lot of NFT projects, the Holy Bible NFTs are pulling aggressively from early-aughts aesthetics, with vaporwavey graphics, and a website that auto-plays a song when you enter (by Hillsong, the worship band spinoff of the mega-church whose founder was charged with covering up child sex abuse last year). Basically, they look like something that would pop out of a loot box in a piety-themed first-person shooter. 

The roadmap ends in April with the project  claiming some metaverse “land” on which to build a digital church. The metaverse land—which doesn’t appear to exist yet, based on the Discord being dead-quiet since last month and no news on the website—will “bring the most faithful believers across the world together to worship in the Holy Ground,” the website says. A video promoting the project makes it seem like the church will be some kind of navigable Second Life-esque building in virtual reality. 

The project seemed to talk a big game. According to a press release, proceeds from the project will benefit churches, Christian scholarships, and “war relief for places like Ukraine.” Ten million dollars “will be distributed to selected students worldwide to help them focus on their studies and commit to God,” the release says. “Also, from April, the first part of the funds will be released to selected churches.”

Some might (and actually do) say that moving toward a cashless society where the global economy runs on digital assets is a sign of the End Times, prophesied in the book of Revelations, or some kind of scheme by the antichrist. But this isn’t the first Christian-based metaverse project this year: the pope entered the metaverse earlier this month, and last year, “Cryptoverses” put a bunch of Bible verses on the blockchain. 

But it looks like the Holy Bibles NFT project is likely dead, without much hope of a resurrection.