Game Released 28 Years Ago Predicted Bitcoin, Reddit Post Claims

The emergence of Bitcoin (BTC) has been predicted by the Final Fantasy III video game released 28 years ago, according to a recent joke post on Reddit which has managed to amass more than three thousand upvotes as of April 18.

The post refers to a symbol that looks similar to Bitcoin’s logo, pictured on an object in the game that was originally released on April 27, 1990.

The first Bitcoin block was mined on Jan. 3, 2009, making the appearance of the symbol in Final Fantasy III an apparent coincidence. However, this is not the first such coincidence discovered by the members of the Bitcoin community.

Some have seen parallels to Bitcoin in books, such as Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon” published in 2002, “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” written in 2003 by Cory Doctorow, who described a Bitcoin-like currency Whuffie, and “Future Imperfect” by David D. Friedman published in 2008.

In 1999, American economist and Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences Milton Friedman predicted the rise of digital currencies like Bitcoin. In an interview with NTU/F, Friedman suggested a way of payment in the future that would represent “A method where buying on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B, without A knowing B or B knowing A.”

Another ‘prediction’ was found in episode of The Simpsons, showing Homer and Marge in front of a store sign reading “Crypto Barn”. The store described itself as “A place for codes.” The episode “My Sister, My Sitter” was first aired on March 2, 1997.