Observations About The Mark Of The Beast...

Once, while considering Revelation 13, I noticed some details about the Mark of the Beast that I have never seen proposed anywhere else. I thought that I would post them here for, uh, posterity.

From Rev. 13 NKJV,
"16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has

• the mark or
• the name of the beast, or
• the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

From the NIV,
"17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is

• the name of the beast or
• the number of its name."

1. Depending on the intended punctuation of v. 17, the mark of the Beast will take either two or three forms. Only one of them is a number.
2. That means that some will choose an alternative that contains no number at all. (That rules out distinct ID codes for each individual. Such would have to be universal to work.)
3. Both translations include "the name of the beast." That would be his name spelled out.
4. If the NKJV's third option is correct, such a mark would be a logo much like a royal seal.
5. The only thing that these three options have in common is their willful declaration of loyalty (to a particular person). Though caution is due, no one will likely get any of these apart from such a willful decision.

Four more points about the "number,"

1. From the original Greek, 666 is χξς.* That means that it will be a quantitative 600[χ]+60[ξ]+6[ς], not just three sixes strung together.
2. From v.18, only "[he] who has understanding" [those with the Holy Spirit] will recognize its numerality (when the time comes). Unbelievers will not.
3. Since the "number of his name" is distinct from his full name, it will not be a product of his full name. So algorithms based on an analysis of a person's full name are irrelevant.
4. Nobody knows for sure what is meant by "the number" of one's name. His initials would be a good guess, consistent with the rationale given above, but digamma ⟨Ϝ⟩ [for 6] does not have any current literative value. If Greek is used, the numeric "mark" would be ΧΞϜ. (That doesn't rule out initials in the letter/number system of a different language, though [like, say, Babylonian?].)

*The Hebrew [תרס"ו], Greek [above], Roman [DCLXVI], Cyrillic [хѯ҃ѕ] & Glagolitic [ⱈⰿ҃ⰵ] alphabets are all used as numerals.
To programmers, 666 in

• Hexadecimal (base-16) is 29A;
• Octal (base-8), 1,232;
• Binary (base-2), 0010,1001,1010;
• Two more relevant bases, ZQ₂₆, XR₂₇