Gone are the days of $20 thousand per Bitcoin price per unit thanks for the saturation of criminals stealing record amounts of wealth.
Within the contrived fantasy land of the digital construct, where innovation and imagination intercede with an intoxicating intertwining endorphin inducing celebration between Hollywood miscreants and the entire spectrum of Hunter S. Thompson literary Cold War designer drugs, Bitcoin is a formidable trigger sparking implusion. As the cryptocurrency market first achieved a viral standing in 2016, with the promise of instant astronomical returns, while branded in an eloquent shimmering and sparkling package of oscillating future shock translucence and wonderment, the exchange of e-currencies exploded in unprecedented fortunes and YouTube testimonials. However, similar to all online inventions based on visceral cravings and instant gratification, not even mind frying dosage of adrenochrome could save the short-term gold rush from the sobering realities of practicality and and reasonable expectations for sustainable level of security.
Though a blessed few have attained epic success investing in cryptocurrencies, a ridiculous and miniscule proportion when weighed against the total number of investors, the real winners in the lucrative and frenzied sprint medley are the criminal underworld and rogue governments, as $4.4 worth in losses from cyber monetary crimes and fraud occurred in 2019 alone. The staggering figure includes monumental laundering activity and the unprecedented onset of gang turf wars. With the complete absence of regulatory compliance or guarantees, traders are at a constant risk of being hacked, as the non-existence of an online armed vehicle service, or a programmed security force creates debilitating vulnerabilities to a volatile marketplace glued together by propaganda and speculation.
The Fort Knox fortitude of the blockchain technology housing each encrypted 64-character-hash string encompassing the system’s ledger originally developed by the NSA notwithstanding, the weak link occurs in the cyberwallet of an individual or organization, where swarms of hackers wait in anticipation of literally breaking the bank and drink the rich and complex esoteric vintage of irony, while laughing softly at the hilarity of how well modern crime pays. Thanks the blabbering pontificating marathons and sanctimonious musings of anti-virus tycoon and proponent of Bitcoin alternatives, John McAfee, a code of ethics is actually in existence among the pirate circles in exercising discretion to the felon community when selecting a soft target to bolster the fortunes and diversify the hazardous product offerings amid the dangerous alleyways of the aptly named darkweb.
Until guarantees are built around cryptocurrencies and the system is able to correct for massive fluctuations due to unscheduled criminal activity, periodic fluctuations in the range of billions of dollars is possible in tender based on data miners verifying transactions within the consumer marketplace, rather than derived from the value of a tangible commodity. As the mining community facilitates small extraction operations cramming a single apartment full of servers, to vast farming warehouses, energy requirement are at a premium. Supporters of the technological claim that massive of the electrical grid provides a suitable metaphor for investor confidence and backing, however Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks, and Chinese firms from integrating Bitcoin transaction portals is a blazing red flag as to questions massively outweighing the feasibility in offering patrons an unproven and unregulated technology as a payment option at the storefront.
Although the Bitcoin hovers currently around the $9 thousand mark, even through the trials and tribulations of the Covid-19 virus, security breaches have led to a global malware infestation orchestrated from criminal syndicates around the globe, indicating the reality that the majority of account holders are at the whim of a smartbot, the click of a button, and “poof”, fortunes disappear into the ether of the digital hinterland, a process that happens near the borders of the quantum scale. The consistent and stable price per mined cryptocurrency unit is indicative of the perpetual demand stemming from dictatorships and cartels, and does not represent average consumer behavior, an illusion that is a perfect sales pitch and deflection for Bitcoin brokers and optimists prospecting new business opportunities.
While the technological methods to hack cyber wallets are not indistinguishable from magic, some intriguing tools are being deployed to liquidate accounts and preview the future of online crimes. Far and away the most disturbing innovation is the process of deepfake, or taking a facial profile picturing and altering the image to replace the individual’s likeness with another identity. In the eyes and decision making paradigms of AI technology, the now accepted verb that at the least harmful level earns a teenager a prank badge and validation on Snapchat, and the most insidious fools the digital centaur into bankrupting a billion dollar fund within the time it takes for North Korean operatives to transfer nuclear launch codes to the servers on the regime’s lone world class ski resort and chalet.
As the concept of a Ponzi scheme is a gross oversimplification of the entire finite cryptocurrency empire, entrepreneurs should take the label at face value and avoid the manifest destiny of the linchpins of the cybermobs ingloriously raiding online accounts not guaranteed by the FDIC, and delay investments until the legitimate retail outlets interface with the technology. In the meantime, Bitcoin miners with the blessing of Gore and the Green movement, will continue to inflict temporary hot spots of climate change in sucking the energy surplus dry in specific localities where kilowatt hours are resold for pennies on the dollar, prompting an influx of scenarios for computing thieves to retire in style with property abutting Mark Zuckerberg’s mighty wall protecting the world from a diabolical fate.
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