"Am I being punked?"
November 12, 2023 1:57 AM Subscribe
“Bitcoin was always shot through with irony,” Popper said. “Yes, there was something ironic about a bitcoin proponent stealing bitcoin from another bitcoin proponent. But I think that was also in some ways a part of what defined bitcoin.” from The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3 billion
Previously
Previously
maybe i only think this because i'm underestimating the length of the long arm of the law, but generally whenever i read about anything like this i think "why the hell did this person stay in the united states??" if you've robbed an exchange so hard that you've got billions of dollars out of it, even billions of dollars that you can't turn liquid all that quickly, shouldn't you, like, scarper? get to somewhere with no u.s. extradition treaty? keep your head down like you'd keep your head down in the states, but with some borders between you and them for extra protection?
or at least do something more interesting than buy fancy cars and fancy boats and ride on those boats with conventionally pretty women who don't really like you? there are plenty of revolutions that need funding, and you could fund them! you don't have fancy car money, you have geopolitical power money, and you're squandering it on shit! you've got bolshevik bank robbery money on your hands, you've got thousands of times more than bolshevik bank robbery money on your hands, and you waste it on hand-crafted sports cars from italy??
fuck, flee to cuba if you have to. they'll probably take most of your money but they'll probably treat you pretty good in the interest of attracting more crypto heisters.
sigh. where is crypto scarabic? cause we need a "first, be smart from the very beginning" explainer for this one.
rant aside, this guy i understand. he's on the spectrum and he's been bullied all his life and all he's desperate for is friends and he's willing to ignore that all his friends are fake friends and it's all terribly sad and i wish this sad man had his pile of magic Internet money back because what he was doing with it was stupid but almost certainly better than whatever the fuckin' cops who took it from him are doing with it. but a lot of the guys who made off with huge piles of bitcoin have no excuse. no excuse.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:25 AM on November 12, 2023 [23 favorites]
or at least do something more interesting than buy fancy cars and fancy boats and ride on those boats with conventionally pretty women who don't really like you? there are plenty of revolutions that need funding, and you could fund them! you don't have fancy car money, you have geopolitical power money, and you're squandering it on shit! you've got bolshevik bank robbery money on your hands, you've got thousands of times more than bolshevik bank robbery money on your hands, and you waste it on hand-crafted sports cars from italy??
fuck, flee to cuba if you have to. they'll probably take most of your money but they'll probably treat you pretty good in the interest of attracting more crypto heisters.
sigh. where is crypto scarabic? cause we need a "first, be smart from the very beginning" explainer for this one.
rant aside, this guy i understand. he's on the spectrum and he's been bullied all his life and all he's desperate for is friends and he's willing to ignore that all his friends are fake friends and it's all terribly sad and i wish this sad man had his pile of magic Internet money back because what he was doing with it was stupid but almost certainly better than whatever the fuckin' cops who took it from him are doing with it. but a lot of the guys who made off with huge piles of bitcoin have no excuse. no excuse.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:25 AM on November 12, 2023 [23 favorites]
relatedly, one of the worst people i've ever met in my entire life, a wannabe-quant failson who "ran a hedge fund," meaning he played with his rich uncle's money, got in on bitcoin incredibly early, like he was mining in early 2010 i think, on the theory that it was pascal's wager in currency form: probably worthless, but with an outside, outside chance of being immeasurably valuable.
this worst guy i've ever known was (and i believe this may be common among early crypto dweebs) one of those people who was dark enlightenment / neofeudalist avant la lettre, not just an early adopter of magic Internet money but also an early adopter of the "i'm a libertarian so i think the market is always right, the market channels money to a few rich families and no one else can have any of it, therefore it is right for that to happen because market always right therefore i'm a monarchist now" ethos.
also and semi-relatedly he was racist as can be. profoundly racist. would inevitably turn every conversation to charles murray's "the bell curve" and how smart it was. but he'd always make clear that although he was a white racist he wasn't a white supremacist and certainly not an antisemite, because asian people and jewish people are bell-curve-better than white people. typically he'd make this announcement while talking with asian and jewish people, expecting them to be flattered and thereby swayed to his side.
so anyway this worst guy, this crazed bigot, this crypto-monarchist in both senses of "crypto," he mined a bunch of bitcoin early and the bitcoin he mined is probably worth hundreds of millions at least by now, but (there is a happy ending to this story) he lost every damned penny of it in mtgox. double womp.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:34 AM on November 12, 2023 [54 favorites]
this worst guy i've ever known was (and i believe this may be common among early crypto dweebs) one of those people who was dark enlightenment / neofeudalist avant la lettre, not just an early adopter of magic Internet money but also an early adopter of the "i'm a libertarian so i think the market is always right, the market channels money to a few rich families and no one else can have any of it, therefore it is right for that to happen because market always right therefore i'm a monarchist now" ethos.
also and semi-relatedly he was racist as can be. profoundly racist. would inevitably turn every conversation to charles murray's "the bell curve" and how smart it was. but he'd always make clear that although he was a white racist he wasn't a white supremacist and certainly not an antisemite, because asian people and jewish people are bell-curve-better than white people. typically he'd make this announcement while talking with asian and jewish people, expecting them to be flattered and thereby swayed to his side.
so anyway this worst guy, this crazed bigot, this crypto-monarchist in both senses of "crypto," he mined a bunch of bitcoin early and the bitcoin he mined is probably worth hundreds of millions at least by now, but (there is a happy ending to this story) he lost every damned penny of it in mtgox. double womp.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:34 AM on November 12, 2023 [54 favorites]
Exactly. "Sad and lonely man steals drug dealer money to live a life that really doesn't hurt anyone" is a comparatively good story. This guy might be the only good billionaire, right?
He could certainly have done better or smarter with the money but it is difficult to feel especially upset about the whole thing. I do feel a bit upset about the fake friends taking his money, of course, but I hope at least they were kind and convincing while they did it.
posted by Frowner at 5:36 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
He could certainly have done better or smarter with the money but it is difficult to feel especially upset about the whole thing. I do feel a bit upset about the fake friends taking his money, of course, but I hope at least they were kind and convincing while they did it.
posted by Frowner at 5:36 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
i wish this sad man had his pile of magic Internet money back because what he was doing with it was stupid but almost certainly better than whatever the fuckin' cops who took it from him are doing with it.
This guy might be the only good billionaire, right?
That "TRUMP 2020/FUCK YOUR FEELINGS" banner on his wall kinda took the edge off my sympathy.
posted by PlusDistance at 5:59 AM on November 12, 2023 [43 favorites]
This guy might be the only good billionaire, right?
That "TRUMP 2020/FUCK YOUR FEELINGS" banner on his wall kinda took the edge off my sympathy.
posted by PlusDistance at 5:59 AM on November 12, 2023 [43 favorites]
i mean it just highlights how many maga are fundamentally sad people with no friends.
though i guess that does rule out "run to cuba" as a strategy for having your stuff not swiped by cops.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 6:23 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
though i guess that does rule out "run to cuba" as a strategy for having your stuff not swiped by cops.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 6:23 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
He apparently did get someone to watch his dog (“Chad”) while he’s in prison, so that’s maybe one friend at least.
posted by advil at 7:15 AM on November 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by advil at 7:15 AM on November 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
well, two friends really.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:43 AM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:43 AM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
𝕕𝕠𝕘𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕤
this has been your bombastic lowercase pronouncement for the day
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:44 AM on November 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
this has been your bombastic lowercase pronouncement for the day
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:44 AM on November 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
I mean, yeah, hindsight is probably better than 20/20; with a decently documented case, like this one, you can look at the known facts and go, yeah, he should have trusted people a bit less, maybe had a few less drinks at his parties, whatever. The PI who he hired said that he strongly resisted any suggestion that the good-time Charlies who he thought were his friends might have had something to do with the stuff that got swiped. But, pretty much by definition, the only people that we know about are the ones that are unsuccessful at the thug life; there could be someone else who pulled off the same crime but was better at maintaining that firewall between their criminal activities and their social life, and who, if someone did manage to swipe $600,000 or so of their stash, might look at it in the context of having some $3 billion worth and shrug it off. Someone who might look in the mirror and go, "But they're our friends," and their Gollum side would just look back at them sadly and reply, "But you don't have any friends," and they'd just sigh and look for another batch of good-time Charlies to rent for parties.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
"Sad and lonely man steals drug dealer money to live a life that really doesn't hurt anyone" is a comparatively good story.
quoted for truth. i feel nothing but sympathy for this dude. which is weird? crypto-bros, amirite? not this one. lost soul, more like.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:02 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
quoted for truth. i feel nothing but sympathy for this dude. which is weird? crypto-bros, amirite? not this one. lost soul, more like.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:02 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
oh jeez though that dog's gonna be so happy when he come back home. chad'll spin around jump up and wag his tail so hard and maybe i dunno pee a little, total dog adoration, i'd be thinking about that every minute of every day i spent inside.
man that's more reason to be sad-annoyed with him, though. he's out there trying to buy fake friends and boat it up with conventionally pretty women who do not like him at all, and all the while back at home he's got a dog. a dog!
actual friend right there, waiting for you!
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:05 AM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
man that's more reason to be sad-annoyed with him, though. he's out there trying to buy fake friends and boat it up with conventionally pretty women who do not like him at all, and all the while back at home he's got a dog. a dog!
actual friend right there, waiting for you!
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:05 AM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
→
if only that were the case:
this has been your bombastic lowercase pronouncement for the day
if only that were the case:
>>> '𝕕𝕠𝕘𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕤'.upper() != '𝕕𝕠𝕘𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕤' Falseposted by scruss at 8:25 AM on November 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
Meanwhile, the production of bitcoin keeps burning fossil fuels. It's unconscionable.
posted by theora55 at 8:27 AM on November 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 8:27 AM on November 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Multimillionaire (billionaire?) calls cops over theft of a fraction of his own stolen fortune, opening the door to them investigating him and finding his stolen fortune on his property. MAN.
posted by entropone at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by entropone at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
the "mathematical double-stroke" characters that resemble regular lowercase letters are, according to unicode, lowercase characters indeed.
𝕚 𝕒𝕞 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕨𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕚𝕤 𝕨𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
𝕚 𝕒𝕞 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕨𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕚𝕤 𝕨𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:30 AM on November 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
> Multimillionaire (billionaire?) calls cops over theft of a fraction of his own stolen fortune, opening the door to them investigating him and finding his stolen fortune on his property. MAN.
the situation sort of reminds me of how alan turing, likewise autistic, ruined his life. both were in a situation where they absolutely positively had to avoid interacting with law enforcement, but an injustice had been committed and the rules say that police are who you call to fix the world when injustices have been committed so they called the police.
this is in no way meant to equate jimmy zhong and alan turing, likewise in no way meant to equate swiping bitcoin and being queer in mid-20th century britain.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:41 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
the situation sort of reminds me of how alan turing, likewise autistic, ruined his life. both were in a situation where they absolutely positively had to avoid interacting with law enforcement, but an injustice had been committed and the rules say that police are who you call to fix the world when injustices have been committed so they called the police.
this is in no way meant to equate jimmy zhong and alan turing, likewise in no way meant to equate swiping bitcoin and being queer in mid-20th century britain.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:41 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
oh poor Chad (he named the dog Chad omfg) I hope Chad will still be alive when Zhong gets out of prison. this is just a sad story all around.
posted by supermedusa at 9:55 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 9:55 AM on November 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
(polite reminder: all that prettyprinting unicode stuff reduces accessibility and makes it harder for screenreaders)
posted by glonous keming at 10:35 AM on November 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 10:35 AM on November 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
There’s something particularly sad about a rich guy in a college town who basically just wants to be a frat boy.
Like, if I were going to be a rich weirdo hanging out with younger people in Athens, Georgia, I’d at least fund an arts space.
posted by smelendez at 11:41 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Like, if I were going to be a rich weirdo hanging out with younger people in Athens, Georgia, I’d at least fund an arts space.
posted by smelendez at 11:41 AM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
glonous keming, I wish I could flag your comment as eponysterical.
posted by of strange foe at 1:30 PM on November 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by of strange foe at 1:30 PM on November 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
Meanwhile, the production of bitcoin keeps burning fossil fuels. It's unconscionable.
Don't worry, as long as people continue to love big banks and inflation then Bitcoin has no chance.
posted by neonamber at 5:09 PM on November 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Don't worry, as long as people continue to love big banks and inflation then Bitcoin has no chance.
posted by neonamber at 5:09 PM on November 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted; lets drop the font formatting derail
posted by taz (staff) at 10:17 PM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 10:17 PM on November 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Fine but for the record I personally enjoyed the font formatting derail.
posted by kensington314 at 10:21 PM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 10:21 PM on November 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Absolutely no problem to make a font formatting post, and no problem with some degree of tangents in discussion! However, when it's a hard U-turn into a completely unrelated topic, over several comments, it is a bit of a problem, and flagging ensues.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:04 AM on November 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:04 AM on November 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
I went to high school with the lower half of the 1%, so even now, 37 years later, I have a lot of Facebook "friends" who are the sort of born on third base and think they hit a triple, "an-cap" libertarian types. Constant yipping about "the market" with just no awareness of how fucking stupid they really are. One of them even called himself a "disruptor" to much applause from the rest of them. They all agreed that Gaza should be razed and its people... removed, because they "weren't fit to compete". I once had a tremendous amount of fun working with a friend to troll them all into thinking that everyone should be charged to continue breathing: "Oxygen should be monetized!"
"Crypto" was just huge with these dipshits for years: it will free us from the evils of taxation, from "takers" who want "handouts", yada yada. But two of them, who claimed to be "centimillionaires"* on paper because of their crypto, got caught up in some kind of scam, possibly this one, and both lost everything, as in, were evicted/foreclosed, one has to work retail now. My liver is choking on the schadenfreude, because fundamentally, I'm kind of a bad person.
* This means, "worth $100 million", not "$0.01 million" like it ought to.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:41 AM on November 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
"Crypto" was just huge with these dipshits for years: it will free us from the evils of taxation, from "takers" who want "handouts", yada yada. But two of them, who claimed to be "centimillionaires"* on paper because of their crypto, got caught up in some kind of scam, possibly this one, and both lost everything, as in, were evicted/foreclosed, one has to work retail now. My liver is choking on the schadenfreude, because fundamentally, I'm kind of a bad person.
* This means, "worth $100 million", not "$0.01 million" like it ought to.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:41 AM on November 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Mod note: Spam comment and response removed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:53 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:53 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Wait, let me get my surprised face for this.
posted by DreamerFi at 2:17 AM on November 12, 2023 [21 favorites]