Interesting reference. Not sure how you feel about the mark of the beast, but I actually believe it will be a future event. But not soon, because society would be cashless at that time. ("no one can buy or sell unless...")

To me the mark sounds like it'd be a Verifiable Credential. Keep in mind the details of the prophecy. It would attest that you, as a person, have given allegiance to the Beast (an actual person or being). And payments would fail if that VC is not present.

And the "right hand or forehead" details sound like NFC implant locations. Those are the easiest places to scan.

Some sort of centralization will have taken hold, even if it's only the fact that everyone decided to require this VC for payments.

Ironically, I still want to build in this space using VCs and web3. I can't stop the inevitable, but maybe I'll delay it by promoting decentralized ecosystems.