Hi 
I am heavy in the theory that the Mark of the Beast is electronic payment. Have been for some years. Even lost a friend because of my opinion. His stated reason for quitting the friendship was that my opinion on that topic was unacceptable.
Now in my country Denmark the government is pushing for everything having to work through the smartphone. While I try to stay off all of the electronism,I am wondering if I am just having a bizarre idea. I mean, nobody else came up with exactly the same idea. And the catholic church has not gone out warning against the stuff.
The fact that taking the mark of the beast will send you into eternal damnation (revelation 14:11), would it not make sense if at least the church as a whole should clearly identify that this is that mark?
Welcome back! My knowledge of tech and smartphones is very limited. Maybe there is a tech website also interested in in your theory. Let us know what you discover.
My guess (and that’s all it is) is that accepting the mark of the Beast means in some way acknowledging the rule of evil. Refuse to do that and you will be punished. I imagine that the Beast will use any available methods to enforce its will. I don’t think that any one method would be the mark. If everyone in the world could be forced to use only electronic commerce and had to acknowledge the Beast in order to use it, then the acknowledgment, and not the technology, might get you marked. I’m only speculating.
It certainly can be a mark of the beast, however, I believe the mark of the beast relates to Emperor Nero (as the numbers literally add up to the spelling of his name).
666 (Nun (50) + Resh (200) + Waw (6) + Nun + (50) Qop (100) + Samekh (60) + Resh (200) = 666 (which spells “Caesar Nero” in Aramaic or Hebrew: NRWN QSR .
Both the Aramaic and ancient Hebrew alphabets are very similar and did not include vowels.
There are early manuscripts of Revelation that record the beast’s number as 616 , leaving off a number 50 in the equation.
I, like you am concerned about a one world digital currency and the control that it could have over an otherwise free people. And they first put the chip in our phones (apple pay, google pay, etc.) It is incrementalism. We have to decide now how fare we are willing to go along and also know that they will use fear or force to get us to cross that line. They may used incentives, but know that there will be strings attached if we accept the deal.
Even if it is forced upon us, there will always be an consent element to it. They will always say that we consented to it, and in truth, we will. We can choose not to go along with it, but life will be hard if we do not. Or they will claim we democratically consented (meaning the majority consented for the minority) and therefore we must comply.