Full Disclosure: I fucking despise everything about Cryptocurrency and those who hold it. However, I am not going to dedicate this blog to bashing “currency” that fluctuates 5% per day and is set up as the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of the United States. Credit to me.
What I am interested in is the story of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. I am obsessed with stories of extortion. My town’s police department got hacked and it took the cops a week to decide whether or not they wanted to cough up the $500. Yes, I said that right. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. If my phone or computer got hacked, I’d take out a second mortgage on command. So in the case of Colonial Pipeline, these Russian fuckers seriously had people paying out the ass for gas for a week! Not only that, they negotiated a fucking payday for themselves in the sum of 75 Bitcoin. At this time, 75 solid virtual coins totaled $4.4 million. I always wonder what stops the hackers from taking the money and not stopping the attack. If I had any ounce of computer engineering skills (Got an A in Python though), I would be running the attack like a Merry-Go-Round. “Oh you just paid me $4.4 million to stop? Yeah, I am going to need another $10 million.” At this point, is anyone really mad? The Russians have their money for god knows what they spend money on, I am done filling sandwich size Ziploc bags with gas, and Colonial Pipeline helped promote one of the best uses of cryptocurrency. Cue the FBI’s music.
I feel like every Finance undergrad had a crypto phase. I did, and the deeper I dove, the more skeptical/lost I became. I thought the whole point of decentralized finance was that it would be the Wild West. I pictured my crypto wallet like my butthole. NOBODY CAN GO NEAR THAT THING. However, that is not the case. The Federal Government proved that your crypto wallet is theirs, just like Jeffrey Epstein.
WSJ – On Monday investigators obtained a seizure warrant from a magistrate judge in northern California that enabled authorities working with Colonial Pipeline to capture the bitcoin from the virtual wallet linked to the hacking group. Law-enforcement officials often work with private-sector analysts who can track cryptocurrency transactions across public ledgers known as blockchains. By mapping clusters of virtual wallets and cross-referencing their transactions with intelligence about hacks, analysts say, they are able to reliably trace many ransom payments.
Are you fucking kidding me? It is that easy? These guys couldn’t even finish inside their hookers before 64 of 75 Bitcoin were taken back. One would think Colonial would be ecstatic over the news, right? Well, it just so happens that much of the world banded together to spark about a 40% sell off in Bitcoin over this time period. As I said before, “Currency.” This amounted to a $2.3 million payout of the original $4.4 million. If I am the CFO of Colonial Pipeline, I think I have no other option than jumping off a cliff. If I had the choice, I would send the payment and consciously never own nor look at the price of Bitcoin ever again in the off chance it goes to $1 million per coin. People will be talking about the time a guy bought two pizzas for 10,000 shitcoin and when a company in a dying industry gave some Russian dirtbags 75 coins a couple years before its massive ascent.
Sidenote: I am sure that El Salvador ruling Bitcoin as a legitimate currency will do wonders in fixing the country’s rampant corruption problems.
Stay Poor People
Standardly Poor 