Sudan’s former ruler, Omar al-Bashir, won many fights for three decades. He mastered the politics of UN. He overcame America and South Sudan. He triumphed over IMF and World Bank.
He fought rebels, friends and enemies – and won. But at the end, he fell because of BREAD. Yes, bread – so simple and harmless- brought down one of the last surviving yoyo men of Africa.
As you think of that, I bring what will destroy Bitcoin despite any optimistic exuberance pushed by its adherents. Simply, the cryptocurrency is developing a reputation as the currency for criminals to receive illegal payments for ransomware.
So, if you extrapolate, even if Bitcoin itself is not directly affected by hacking and ransomware, the fact that many criminals have chosen it will likely push many countries to go hard on it.
The latest is that “meat supplier JBS USA Holdings has said it paid out an $11 million ransom in Bitcoin to cybercriminals.” Just a few weeks ago, Colonial Pipeline paid out millions of dollars via Bitcoin to criminals – and thank goodness, the FBI was able to recover some of that back.
Read: US recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers
Yes, “seizure of more than half of the company’s payment cuts against crypto’s reputation as an untraceable financial medium for hackers.”
So, if the world leaders see Bitcoin as the choice for criminals, expect them to open a new playbook on this currency. And that playbook may not be palatable for hodlers.
Shine your eyes.
Meat supplier JBS USA Holdings has said it paid out an $11 million ransom in Bitcoin to cybercriminals. The company’s chief executive told The Wall Street Journal that the recent ransomware attack temporarily knocked out plants which handle about one-fifth of the meat supply for the U.S. Based in Brazil, JBS Holdings is the world’s largest meat supplier by sales. Ransomware attacks have spiked; last month, Colonial Pipeline paid a total of $4.4 million in Bitcoin to resume its pipeline — of which the Justice Department managed to retrieve roughly $2.3 million of the ransom paid to the Russian hackers.
The FBI recovered roughly half of the ransom paid by the Colonial Pipeline by tracking a “publicly visible bitcoin ledger,” reports The Wall Street Journal, then pouncing when hackers performed a transfer to a virtual address the bureau had access to.
