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One of the original Bitcoin core developers, Luke Dashjr, claimed on Twitter that attackers had managed to compromise multiple wallets — which he described as both hot and cold wallets — to steal all of his Bitcoins. Dashjr originally blamed the attack on a PGP key compromise, but later said the PGP compromise was only a part of a much broader hack where attackers also bypassed two-factor authentication and got access to what he had believed to be a cold wallet.
Dashjr complained on Twitter about having trouble getting in contact with the FBI about the theft. Some joked about the irony of a Bitcoin maximalist running to the FBI when his coins were stolen.
There are some questions about the veracity of Dashjr's claims, given his supposed security practices, the extent of the breach, and some of his odd comments on Twitter.
Research firm Logically published an investigation into two QAnon influencers who successfully convinced their follower to put more than $2 million into crypto scams. Telling their followers that they could predict the success of cryptocurrencies because of access to "secret military intelligence", they capitalized on QAnon conspiracy theories to defraud their followers through various pump-and-dump schemes. The influencers made claims including that they had personal connections with Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and John F. Kennedy, Jr. (who died in 1999, despite some QAnon theories), or that "aliens want us to trade cryptocurrency 'as an on-ramp to familiarize ourselves with the quantum financial system until we can evolve into 5D and trade assets with our consciousness'".
According to Logically, the "vast majority" of people following the influencers' investment advice "lost anywhere between several hundred and tens of thousands of dollars". One man lost more than $100,000, a loss that caused him to then lose his house and construction business. The man ultimately died by suicide.
Anna Sorokin, the scammer who convinced people and companies to give her hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a German heiress, has decided to get into NFTs. After winding up with a "scammer persona", which she says is a result of the Netflix series about her and not a result of the scams that landed her in prison, she has announced her intentions to "move away from" it. Now she is focusing on an NFT collection, which she announced in an interview from a detention facility in New York.
Coinbase announced that they would be cutting 18% of their employees, amounting to 1,100 people. This announcement came only two weeks after they rescinded already-accepted job offers from some new employees, a move that itself came only two weeks after the company announced a hiring freeze. Coinbase has attributed their decisions to "current market conditions" and "crypto winter".
Coinbase broke the news to affected employees in a particularly cold way: by email, sent to employees' personal email accounts because they immediately cut access to employees' work accounts. "Given the number of employees who have access to sensitive customer information, it was unfortunately the only practical choice, to ensure not even a single person made a rash decision that harmed the business or themselves," wrote CEO Brian Armstrong in a message to employees that was subsequently published as a blog post.
If someone pitches you on a "great" Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does.
Sources and Further Reading
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-grifters-try-to-scam-artists-again/
https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buyer-and-his-nft-defi-scheme/
https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html
https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-say/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto-eth-bitcoin-etc-financialization-gamestop-class-wealth/
https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20
https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-so-is-blockchain-3e80078e77fe
https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-eight-parts-7b6161f3a35a
https://naavik.co/business-breakdowns/axie-infinity/#axie-decon=
https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensive
https://twitter.com/NFTtheft
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-05-baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-crescendo-but-its-play-to-earn-thats-worth-watching-opinion
https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary-tale-of-stolen-nfts
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugged-chapter-6-banking-the-unbanked/
https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed
Written and performed by Dan Olson
Crowdfunding: https://www.patreon.com/foldablehuman
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman
00:00:00 Preface
00:01:12 0. In 2008 The Economy Collapsed
00:07:09 1. Bitcoin
00:18:18 2. Ethereum
00:24:34 3. The Machine
00:39:07 4. NFTs Exist To Get You To Buy Crypto
00:57:54 5. The Unbearable Cringe Of Crypto
01:11:46 6. A Self-Organizing High Control Group
01:16:57 7. Crypto Reality
01:25:36 8. There Is No Privacy On The Chain
01:32:52 9. If This "Looks Like Scam" Then Every NFT Room I'm In Looks Like Scam LOL
01:38:29 10. Play To Earn Exists To Get You To Buy Crypto
01:46:39 11. We're All Gonna Make It And By "We" I Mean "Us" Not You
01:56:08 12. DAOs Exist To Get You To Buy Crypto
02:13:21 13. I Know It's Rigged, But It's The Only Game In Town