Does the fact that the US government was able to recover more that 50% of the ransom put any sort of dent in the anonymity of cryptocurrency? I always thought that the decentralization was the key to this industry, but if the US government can figure out and trace the monies in a few short weeks, is cryptocurrency, blockchain and NFT's really that secure? I pose these questions to the crypto gurus on this board.
The "story" is that the money was not in an offline wallet and was in a custodial account or on an exchange and the DOJ subpoena the servers and made them hand over the private keys. Without the keys you cannot get the money. This is why you keep your stuff in a private wallet, as the saying goes "not your keys, not your coins". With that said, as stated in a prior post these hackers are not stupid and know that which is why I personally do not believe the DOJ story.
A little late to the rodeo here, but all the "news" that came out a few weeks ago about the seizure was one of two things, both of which are extremely feasible.
1. Part of a coordinated plan to FUD and drive down the price of BTC and crypto.
2. Lazy reporters copying headlines off of each other. NYT seeing CNBC w/ a top story on the hack and not doing their research.
Why do I say this? Because the fn story was exposed in MAY! The story was there, from one of the top internet security experts.
When the FBI released that they seized the BTC 3 weeks later, the media was not interested how they seized it. The narrative became "is bitcoin not as secure as we've thought" "could the govt take your crypto" or any other iteration of stupidity. The talking heads on CNBC bantered for hours on how this could have happened, is this the end of btc and other nonsense.
The story was right there. The hackers were morons, left the keys to the wallet on the domestic server they used to exploit Colonial. Rather than report the facts, the media universally focused on pushing FUD, which leads me back to the 2 points I posted above. This was one of two of those events or a more likely a combination of both.
Ive witnessed it with CNBC and their efforts to in Jan to shift focus from GME to things like KOS & BBY. Even know Kramer still does it with Wendys. He mentions it as a mem stock daily with the others, when reality, no one on Reddit is talking about Wendys.
https://yolostocks.live/ <--- good site for monitoring the WSB trades.
Anyone looking for a high potential cheaper coin take a look at AMP. It’s been flying under the radar since it’s only been listed on Gemini until today but it goes live on Coinbase Pro tomorrow and Coinbase soon after that. Gemini has a very small user volume so this is the first time AMP will get some serious exposure in the crypto world.
Huge potential. Its a token being used as collateral behind the Flexa payment network which allows people to make purchases using other crypto (like BTC, ETH, Dodge, and a handful of others for now). The Flexa network is already being used on a very small scale by certain merchants (Lowe’s, Dunkin’, coming to Sheetz gas stations end of summer).
IMO it’s going to be one of the leaders in the Crypto payment space. Long term hold though until crypto payments become more generally accepted.
AMP is a great coin. I grabbed a bunch last year for less than a half penny. The 1100% returns have been nice. Up until a few weeks ago, its been such a small % of my portfolio that I never really paid it any mind. This is a coin I could see hitting $1 quickly.
Sheetz is accepting BTC via AMP and the Flexa network. Ive seen Dunkin Donuts customers pay for coffee using the network as well.
That is crazy........a friend of mine believes that it is all staged to hammer crypto so either
1- Big corp and gov can buy in on the dip
or
2- Because the gov has no control over it.
I partially touched on this before, but it's not too far fetched. The amount of attacks BTC has seen in the last 8 weeks have been staggering. From regurgitated environmental attacks that get copy & pasted by lazy reporters, to the SEC delaying a ruling on ETF's to the ransomware mis-stories, capital gains fearmongering, China bans, the amount of negative stories seems too consistently coordinated to be random.
I even came across a headline on my FB feed asking "Are Whales Selling Their BTC?"
They're not. On-chain metrics show long term holders continue to hold and accumulate, while the sell offs have been from wallets less than 90 days old. Even though the price has been dipping, the amount of new wallet address has been aggressively increasing. (This is the opposite of what happened in late 17)
Ive been saying for mos now than anything from 30 - 75 was possible near term. I think there's another 10 - 20 days left of sideways trading. Honestly, I wouldnt be shocked to see a dip to 27 or 28 briefly.
I'll share here what I've shared with people in my life who have been on the fence about BTC. Buy BTC! Open a Coinbase or Gemini account and DCA in ASAP. As I said earlier, theres 10 - 20 days left of accumulation left. From there, the real bull market should take shape and I think it's off to the races.
I've been accumulating what I can lately. The domino fell with El salvador. Panama and others will be next.
Side note, the China ban is nothing new. Just like the BTC is bad for the environment talk.
2013
After China puts a damper on Bitcoin, Baidu stops accepting it.
www.forbes.com
2017
China has launched a major crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
www.insider.com
I do think, and as a result, I don’t need to rely on watching cheesy You Tube video’s as my investment advisors.
I tend to agree. I try to stick to those with legitimacy, perform legit on chain analysis or are crypto OG's.
www.zerohedge.com
www.cnbc.com
www.google.com
www.pcinvasion.com
