Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies

Mystery As Gold Cube Worth $11.7million ‘Pops up’ in NYC’s Central Park

A MYSTERIOUS gold cube worth an estimated $11.7million appeared in New York's Central Park on Wednesday morning accompanied by its very own security detail.

The cube, composed of 186 kilograms of pure 24-karat gold, was rolled out in front of a snowy Naumburg Bandshell at 5am in the morning surrounded by photographers and NYPD officers.

NINTCHDBPICT000709155974.webp


Artist Niclas Castello and wife Sylvie Meis

The hollow gold block is the creation of 43-year-old German artist Niclas Castello, who has branded it the "Castello Cube."

The 410-pound work is not for sale but was used as publicity for the launch of accompanying cryptocurrency, the Castello Coin.

With gold currently priced at $1,788 per ounce, it is worth up to $11.7millon if it were to be put up for sale.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/4604672/gold-castello-cube-central-park/

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Mystery As Gold Cube Worth $11.7million ‘Pops up’ in NYC’s Central Park

A MYSTERIOUS gold cube worth an estimated $11.7million appeared in New York's Central Park on Wednesday morning accompanied by its very own security detail.

The cube, composed of 186 kilograms of pure 24-karat gold, was rolled out in front of a snowy Naumburg Bandshell at 5am in the morning surrounded by photographers and NYPD officers.

NINTCHDBPICT000709155974.webp


Artist Niclas Castello and wife Sylvie Meis

The hollow gold block is the creation of 43-year-old German artist Niclas Castello, who has branded it the "Castello Cube."

The 410-pound work is not for sale but was used as publicity for the launch of accompanying cryptocurrency, the Castello Coin.

With gold currently priced at $1,788 per ounce, it is worth up to $11.7millon if it were to be put up for sale.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/4604672/gold-castello-cube-central-park/

maximus otter
Click to expand...
Is that a world record? I mean, it could be the biggest single block of pure gold ever made.
Unless... it's gold-plated lead...
 
Mythopoeika said:
Is that a world record? I mean, it could be the biggest single block of pure gold ever made.
Unless... it's gold-plated lead...
Click to expand...
It's hollow. A solid gold block that size would probably fall straight through the planet and out the other side.*

*This may be an exaggeration.
 
I would bet good money that the cube is gold-plated and the security is just for show.
 
The problems just mount up. Who saw that coming?
 
Very interesting bit of investigative journalism here... (via Forbes)

Austrian Programmer And Ex Crypto CEO Likely Stole $11 Billion Of Ether

"Who hacked The DAO in 2016, diverting 3.6 million ether? We identify the apparent hacker — he denies it — by following a complicated trail of crypto transactions and using a previously undisclosed privacy-cracking forensics tool. "

By @LauraShin on the Twitter machine.
 
This is interesting. I looked up Oleksii Novikov (World's Strongest Man 2020) this morning as I am a big strongman fan and he is Ukrainian and it seems that the usual routes of transferring money such as crowdfunding are being blocked. Companies, fairly understandably, do not want to be involved in funding military activities. So money is now being sent in the form of cryptocurrency.

Here is the Novikov story:-
https://fitnessvolt.com/oleksii-novikov-financial-support-ukrainian-military/

The 2020 World’s Strongest Man, Oleksii Novikov, is attempting to help his country by raising money for the Ukrainian army. In addition, he is spreading awareness, as he has a lot of fans and followers. Novikov originally put up a post on Instagram, which contained the bank details, and enabled all the people to help as much as they could. Novikov was grateful for all the donations and revealed that the entirety of it was sent out to the medical department. In the meantime, his bank account was shut down, and he had to open another one. Novikov shared the details of his new bank account, but it does not work anymore.
Click to expand...

In Novikov’s most recent post he explained that Ukraine’s bank systems are down, and transactions are not possible anymore. However, he set up a cryptocurrency account and can accept Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH).
Click to expand...

And one from the BBC:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60541942
Cryptocurrency analysts say at least $13.7m (£10.2m) has so far been donated to the Ukrainian war effort through anonymous Bitcoin donations.
Researchers at Elliptic, a blockchain analysis company, say the Ukrainian government, NGOs and volunteer groups have raised the money by advertising their Bitcoin wallet addresses online.
More than 4,000 donations have been made so far, with one unknown donor gifting Bitcoin worth $3m to an NGO.
Click to expand...
 
Min Bannister said:
This is interesting. I looked up Oleksii Novikov (World's Strongest Man 2020) this morning as I am a big strongman fan and he is Ukrainian and it seems that the usual routes of transferring money such as crowdfunding are being blocked. Companies, fairly understandably, do not want to be involved in funding military activities. So money is now being sent in the form of cryptocurrency.

Here is the Novikov story:-
https://fitnessvolt.com/oleksii-novikov-financial-support-ukrainian-military/





And one from the BBC:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60541942
Click to expand...


Screenshot_2021-03-15-Oleksii-Novikov-novikov_strong_wsm-%E2%80%A2-Instagram-photos-and-videos.png


;)

maximus otter
 
The victim mentions that they attackers didnt get his million dollar watch or his million dollar custom car (with a Pablo Token paintjob), that the attackers missed out on how he got rich on the Pablo Token (down around 100% since launch), and they could have come to him to get rich with Pablo Token, but instead he's put out a reward in Pablo Token. Did I mention Pablo Token and getting rich with Pablo Token? Well you too could get rich with Pablo Token. Pablo Token.

I am suspicious.

"A Lamborghini owner who was the victim of an attempted follow-home robbery that was caught on camera is offering what's believed to be the first of its kind cryptocurrency reward, in hopes of sending a message that this behavior cannot be tolerated. "

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/...pted-follow-home-robbery-downtown-speaks-out/
 
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I guess they were not robbers. They just wanted to give him a deserved beating for his pump-and-dump scheme :cool:

1648926168852.png
 
Speaking of crimes related to cryptocurrency ... A tech-savvy thief can make off with one's crypto stash by stealing and hacking hardware just as an old school burglar might steal a wallet or purse, as this Florida case illustrates.
Pinellas Park man stole nearly $600,000 in cryptocurrency, police say

A 27-year-old man stole more than $575,000 worth of cryptocurrency from an elderly person while he was setting up technology in the victim’s home, according to the Clearwater Police Department.

Aaron Daniel Motta of Pinellas Park faces felony charges of grand theft and offenses against computer users, according to an arrest affidavit.

Motta was at the victim’s house to set up a security system and had access to the victim’s computer ... While there, Motta stole a Trezor hardware wallet, which lets users store cryptocurrency offline, and found the password to it nearby ...

Motta then transferred cryptocurrency worth $575,910.61 at the time to multiple wallets that he controlled ...

A Facebook page in Motta’s name said he is an IT manager, former cyber security engineer and ethical hacker. Calls went unanswered Saturday to a phone number written on the affidavit, which is also listed online for the company Motta works for ...

The victim is 65 years or older, according to the affidavit. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://www.tampabay.com/news/break...e-nearly-600000-in-cryptocurrency-police-say/
 
Great Bitcoin crime story:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/0...oin-bust-of-the-webs-biggest-child-abuse-site
https://www.wired.com/story/tracers-in-the-dark-welcome-to-video-crypto-anonymity-myth/

At a particularly memorable point in the night, the Korean agents had been ribbing the US team for their alleged hot-dog-and-hamburger diets. One agent mentioned sannakji, a kind of small octopus that some Koreans eat not merely raw but alive and writhing. Tamsi had gamely responded that he’d try it.

A few minutes later, a couple of the Korean agents had brought to the table a fist-sized, living octopus wrapped around a chopstick. Tamsi put the entire squirming cephalopod in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, even as its tentacles wriggled between his lips and black ink dripped from his face onto the table. “It was absolutely horrible,” Tamsi says.

The Koreans found this hilarious. Tamsi gained near-legendary status within certain circles of the Korean National Police, where he was thereafter referred to as “Octopus Guy.”

Like most of their group, Tamsi had no experience in child exploitation cases. He had never even worked on a cryptocurrency investigation. But Faruqui insisted that to make inroads in Korea, they needed Octopus Guy.
 
An NFT collector says:

Yash Tekriwal @yash_tek
I've had a lot of bad days, and today objectively ranks somewhere in the top 5.
How I lost ~$450K in an instant, how you can avoid my mistakes, and why I still think Web3 is worth the heartache and the risk

Getting a @proof_xyz pass last December for 2.465 ETH was my first dive into NFTs.
Spending $7K on a JPEG felt stupid, but I was fine losing it because I was certain the value & learning from @kevinrose would be worth much more.
I could never have fathomed how right I was.

Others say it's just Stockholm syndrome:

Dare Obasanjo @Carnage4Life
Hey Siri, show me what Stockholm Syndrome looks like…

Dave Cranwell (hiring Node SWEs) @davecranwell
If the "real" value of web3 is the "friends you made along the way"... not that lost 450k, god help us all.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1518094517273907201
 
uair01 said:
An NFT collector says:

Yash Tekriwal @yash_tek
I've had a lot of bad days, and today objectively ranks somewhere in the top 5.
How I lost ~$450K in an instant, how you can avoid my mistakes, and why I still think Web3 is worth the heartache and the risk

Getting a @proof_xyz pass last December for 2.465 ETH was my first dive into NFTs.
Spending $7K on a JPEG felt stupid, but I was fine losing it because I was certain the value & learning from @kevinrose would be worth much more.
I could never have fathomed how right I was.

Others say it's just Stockholm syndrome:

Dare Obasanjo @Carnage4Life
Hey Siri, show me what Stockholm Syndrome looks like…

Dave Cranwell (hiring Node SWEs) @davecranwell
If the "real" value of web3 is the "friends you made along the way"... not that lost 450k, god help us all.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1518094517273907201
Click to expand...
From Yash's twitter thread it's not even the first time he's fallen for the same scam.

"What hurts most about this is that I'd already learned this lesson with a Solana scam that took all the SOL out of my wallet (~$1000 at the time)"
 
Investor Warren Buffett addressed the annual shareholder meeting today for his multinational holding company Berkshire Hathaway — and said he still wouldn't buy bitcoin. But this time he gave a detailed explanation why. CNBC reports:
"Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don't know. But the one thing I'm pretty sure of is that it doesn't produce anything," Buffett said.... "If you said... for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25 billion, I'll write you a check this afternoon," Buffett said. "[For] $25 billion I now own 1% of the farmland... Now if you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn't take it because what would I do with it? I'd have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn't going to do anything... The farms are going to produce food...."

"Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there's only one currency that's accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things — we can put up Berkshire coins... but in the end, this is money," he said, holding up a $20 bill. "And there's no reason in the world why the United States government... is going to let Berkshire money replace theirs."

Later Saturday Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman Charlie Munger had an even harsher appraisal of bitcoin. "In my life, I try and avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad in comparison to somebody else — and bitcoin does all three," Munger said.

"In the first place, it's stupid because it's still likely to go to zero. It's evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve System... and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China."

https://slashdot.org/story/22/04/30/2245200/why-warren-buffett-still-wont-invest-in-bitcoin
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/30/war...ion-for-why-he-doesnt-believe-in-bitcoin.html
 
According to the results of Patreon's first creator census, 43% of creators are strongly against crypto payments, while 30% said they don't care. "Nine percent said crypto payments would be crucial, while 18% said they would be nice to have,"
https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/...-that-most-creators-dont-want-crypto-payments

More than 200 long-time Wikipedia editors have requested that the Wikimedia Foundation stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The foundation received crypto donations worth about $130,000 in the most recent fiscal year -- less than 0.1 percent of the foundation's revenue, which topped $150 million last year.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/...es-to-stop-accepting-cryptocurrency-donations

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (which operates Wikipedia) "announced that it would no longer accept cryptocurrency donations," reports Mashable, saying the decision came after a three-month discussion period:
https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/...a-stops-accepting-donations-in-cryptocurrency

This could be bad for cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange.
 
I do not believe in conspiracies that have Warren Buffet as some kind of bogeyman.

I also believe he is a highly credible source for all things economics and finance.

However, I think his statements as outlined above, fundamentally miss the point of bitcoin. This is completely understandable, and from his perspective makes perfect sense, but what bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies do, is provide an alternative.

They provide an alternative that is not subject to the same controls, the same forces and the same volatility as fiat currencies.
This is not to say they are not subject to volatility, of course they are, but it is different to other currencies.

Traditional currencies can serve as a store of value. Cryptocurrencies do not do so in the same way. They are not something to invest in and hold, though that is possible. They are more way to agree a transfer of value with specific criteria, that can be enacted through smart contracts.

Cryptocurrency transactions can fix a value and allow a transfer that is outside of all other currencies, controls and oversight based on a zero-trust presumption.

However, based on a blockchain infrastructure, the base information of the transaction is recorded and available for participants of that blockchain to see. There is still anonymity involved, but the base elements of the transaction are there for all to see.

Buffet does not see the elements of traditional currencies that he has so successfully exploited in cryptocurrencies. Hence, he decries them. That's fair enough, but it does not mean there is no facility in cryptocurrencies. They just work differently, and that is their value.
 
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