The extensive nexus of a Bitcoin mining conglomerate, which uses massive amounts of electricity to decode and validate financial transactions in building the blockchain.
The propaganda mechanism of cryptocurrency guerilla marketing tactics, have spread like wildfires to all parts of the globe, including a sidebar of intrigue and pure entrepreneurship in the slums of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where a crafty software aficionado deployed a stone cold cost-benefit feasibility study in facilitating an ultra-efficient mining operation and becoming disgustingly wealthy in the process. Ironically, in harnessing some of the cheapest energy rates globally, the bountiful electricity requirements feeding the mass of servers and hardware nearly compromised the city’s entire grid, and the subsequent strain on the coal-produced power inflicted a microclimate of global forming thanks to the increased smog as a result. This allusion will certainly resonate with the Green movement activists who are keeping score at home, as in their delusions of grandeur, Mother Gaea continues to endure damaging throat punches right to the neck of the equator region.
The collection of stories spinning a similar narrative and filled with frightening hilarity could swamp the pub conversation for at least a fortnight. The endless tales of gonzo intrigue, nonsensical vapidness, and of course the charming presence of the criminal underworld reverse engineering the hell out of the readily available handout in being able to wash hundreds of billions of dollars with absolutely no threat of consequences or time spent in the club med prisons managed by the hate industrial complex of Neo-Nazis. Search “Bitcoin investing” on any social media, and the plot shifts. Instantly thousands of results will be appear of streaming videos showing glitz, glamour, and the strike it rich quick montage of “champagne wishes and caviar dreams”. It’s hard not to be transfixed by the apparent allure of the cryptocurrency investing hype, and the envious hook strengthened through countless testimonies of success.
WATCH: Youth turns one grand into a fortune!
A blockchain thinktank whiteboard illustrating the integrity and exponential mathmatics within a single hash. (courtesy YouTube user Khan Academy)
With the billions of legitimate investor money misplaced spanning two years of successful digital heists, as Bitcoin and other variations of hash technology are not protected by the FDIC or similar organizations, it should be of no surprise when a story comes down the wire where a group of North Korean operative liquidated an entire electronic multi-investor fund with one forceful peck on the keyboard. Then there is the mysterious death of the founder of Canada’s largest cryptocurrency fund, who apparently went to grave with THE password, and clients were locked out of hundreds of millions of dollars. However, like a blazing dumpster fire of despicable proportions in the decadent destructive inferno torching an alleyway, one finds to impossible not to stare and process the orgiastic explosion in savoring everything that is wrong with the pyrotechnic display. Witnessing epic incidents of cyber fraud involving cryptocurrency is no different, as the prevalence of blind faith in embracing the goodness of humanity, and placing complete trust in a novel and virtually untested marketplace demands zero sympathy, and makes for an intriguing and humorous fictional plot, that actually echoes reality. Recently, a group of five venerable Robin Hood types were charged with executing a Ponzi scheme in forming a fake Bitcoin offshoot and lying to and bilking investors out of $722 million. Within the pure Capitalistic realm of the digital wonderland, one cannot garner any sympathy for the stupid and the ignorant, especially with endless databases of useful information that are available through a simple search engine research project.
Anti-virus software tycoon John McAfee, and the other iconic faces of prompting the Bitcoin gold rush through digital communities, which spiked in 2018 at nearly $20 thousand per monetary unit and has since crashed nearly 85% to stabilizing at $7 thousand, all claim that the current of the future is built on the blockchain. However, since Fortune 500 companies including Amazon and Starbucks have thus far refused to directly integrate cyrpotocurrency transactions into their respective infrastructures in a manner which suggests that corporate leadership wishes to not touch the technology with a 10-foot pole is a telling and brutal passive declaration. As investors continue to get fleeced as a result of the instability of the exchange rates, and the blatant security issues with cyber wallets, the only groups willing the future of digital monies with a stubborn will composed of sharp razor blades, cocaine dreams, and Hungarian goddesses held against their dwindling rules, are the entire criminal syndicate from capital C to the timeless lineage of a steady m. Toss in a jagged y for good measure in completing the alphabet representing the entirety of the masters ruling the planet’s underworld.
The caveat to the troubling status of the Bitcoin marketplace and horrific ramifications on the evolution of funding channels for organized crime and rogue government, is that the NSA-based technology housing the 64 character hashes proves “unhackable”, if such an idea exists. Combining elliptic curves, scalar multiplication, and finite fields into the basis of product opens up the realm of possibilities outside of the monetary field. It’s a shame that more concentrated development efforts have not been launched in exploring technology and applications that preserves data and prevents intellectual property from being corrupted, in creating a crypotocurrency project that promotes stability and order, and shuns chaos. There is a future for the rock solid properties of the blockchain, but society has to cast aside this notion that cyber wallets are secure, and accept that there can and will always be online vulnerabilities susceptible to competent cyber criminals. With the younger generation intoxicated by gadgetry and the easy way, the future of personal finances will be anything but.