>Estimated total impact: ~$6.3B, with ~$3B frozen on-chain so far, in coordination with our blockchain partners
I always find it amusing to read this. Why would you even bother with a decentralized currency that can move freely across the globe when some centralized institutions can always interfere in the way legacy banks used to do with your money? Either they are misguiding you about the core value of their product or their ability to execute traditional interventions in cases of theft. You can't have the conveniences of both at the same time.
tokioyoyo 14 minutes ago [-]
At some point it clicked to me that crypto people don’t really care about the utility. Main purpose is creating new players in the world with immense amounts of power. In the end, it did produce a lot of rich people out of thin air, and I guess, served its purpose.
locknitpicker 4 minutes ago [-]
> At some point it clicked to me that crypto people don’t really care about the utility. Main purpose is creating new players in the world with immense amounts of power.
There are many types of crypto people. Some of them are not crypto people per se, but people who saw crypto as a means to an end. Among them, there are plenty of people who seem to be invested in sheer fraud.
It's also important to note that there are many sides to the scheme. There's for example the instant transactions side, and the long term bet in scarcity. For example, Russia has been leaning heavily on crypto to circumvent sanctions due to their invasion of Ukraine.
> In the end, it did produce a lot of rich people out of thin air, and I guess, served its purpose.
It was not out of thin air. This is literally a grift where the people holding the bag saw their money find its way to the pockets of those who got rich from it.
virtualritz 27 minutes ago [-]
Exactly.
It's called the oracle problem. It's the Achilles heel of the whole idea.
And it's unsolvable. As soon as you want to trade some coin for something real, you need an oracle.
Wanna buy a flat in a world where (for argument's sake) even the ownership of that asset is tracked on a blockchain?
Let's say I come home from holidays and someone else lives there.
How do I then prove it's mine? Because it says so in some computer?
Someone has to believe that is true and let me enforce that ownership tie.
Those persons (a judge, the police, even if robots by then) are the oracle.
And a more common scenario than theft is btw legal ownership transfer.
What if I die somehow before giving the blockchain keys needed for that to someone?
How will my brother inherit the flat?
Oracle.
not-kinsale-joe 31 minutes ago [-]
Stable coins are not Crypto, they are just built on top of crypto to avoid normal financial regulations.
schleck8 31 minutes ago [-]
Crypto bros sure are quick to inform law enforcement and centralized financial authorities if their self governance fails
boldaxolotl 15 minutes ago [-]
I'd bet most of the frozen $3B is stablecoins and tokens with an admin freeze function. Tether and Circle can blacklist an address in minutes. Nobody can freeze BTC or ETH. So the money they got back is the part that was never decentralized in the first place, which supports your point from the other side
fhub 9 minutes ago [-]
Sophisticated? Perhaps. But could also be run of the mill honey trap/romantic approach. Easier to slip by 2fas through a front door.
jsw97 57 minutes ago [-]
Their haul is over 20% of North Korea’s GDP.
JumpCrisscross 11 minutes ago [-]
> North Korea’s GDP
Would note that nobody—including probably the Kims—knows what this figure is.
cedws 28 minutes ago [-]
Random thought: when NK collapses, I wonder if there will be a rush to seize the crypto wallets. I guess the CIA will be there first.
monkeydust 27 minutes ago [-]
If they are not already there!
jdw64 9 minutes ago [-]
It’s a pity. If he hadn’t been born in North Korea like that, he would have become a truly great programmer. My life is really hard and painful, but sometimes I think I’m better off than they are.
Same unit as Bybit in Feb 2025 (TraderTraitor), and if the laptop reports are right, the same way in: one developer's machine. Bybit lost $1.5B through a compromised Safe{Wallet} dev box. Twenty months later the largest exchange in the world loses four times that, apparently the same way. I'd like to know what signing setup lets one engineer's laptop reach $6B
NicoJuicy 52 minutes ago [-]
Trump's buddies are stealing from Americans too now?
Who would have thought
nylonstrung 48 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
flohofwoe 42 minutes ago [-]
Tbf it's hard to not immediately think of Trump when North Korea comes up with news like these:
Calling any of these articles “news” is something of a stretch. “Why Trump Fell in Love with Kim Jong Un”. Seriously? These are entertainment articles, at best. Where’s the Buzzfeed Top 10 Reasons Trump loves North Korea link?
flohofwoe 7 minutes ago [-]
Is Fox News more to your liking? It even has "News" in the name ;)
You do realise Trump and Kim Jong Un are both helping prop-up Putin?
Right?
f6v 12 minutes ago [-]
A guy abducts a president of a sovereign state and puts him into New York prison without any legal basis. The whole country is complicit by allowing this to happen. Yet all you can think is Putin.
Rendered at 09:17:20 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I always find it amusing to read this. Why would you even bother with a decentralized currency that can move freely across the globe when some centralized institutions can always interfere in the way legacy banks used to do with your money? Either they are misguiding you about the core value of their product or their ability to execute traditional interventions in cases of theft. You can't have the conveniences of both at the same time.
There are many types of crypto people. Some of them are not crypto people per se, but people who saw crypto as a means to an end. Among them, there are plenty of people who seem to be invested in sheer fraud.
It's also important to note that there are many sides to the scheme. There's for example the instant transactions side, and the long term bet in scarcity. For example, Russia has been leaning heavily on crypto to circumvent sanctions due to their invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/08/russias-use-of-...
> In the end, it did produce a lot of rich people out of thin air, and I guess, served its purpose.
It was not out of thin air. This is literally a grift where the people holding the bag saw their money find its way to the pockets of those who got rich from it.
It's called the oracle problem. It's the Achilles heel of the whole idea.
And it's unsolvable. As soon as you want to trade some coin for something real, you need an oracle.
Wanna buy a flat in a world where (for argument's sake) even the ownership of that asset is tracked on a blockchain?
Let's say I come home from holidays and someone else lives there.
How do I then prove it's mine? Because it says so in some computer?
Someone has to believe that is true and let me enforce that ownership tie.
Those persons (a judge, the police, even if robots by then) are the oracle.
And a more common scenario than theft is btw legal ownership transfer.
What if I die somehow before giving the blockchain keys needed for that to someone?
How will my brother inherit the flat?
Oracle.
Would note that nobody—including probably the Kims—knows what this figure is.
Who would have thought
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gj1vje8dxo
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-offered-kim-jong-un-ri...
https://www.courthousenews.com/why-trump-fell-in-love-with-k...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-has-good-chem...
Right?