sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Born to chew bubble gum and kick ass
I. Foreword
This a fictional story. It has nothing to do with the current events. All similarities to any person are unintended. While reading this story please remember daddy Loozik is ALWAYS wrong. For sure there will be better stories of how to steal $ 0.5 billion than this fictional and made up story.
II. The story (small part of it)
If I were criminally minded and at the same time not stupid and wanted to steal $0.5 billion, I would knew that my preys had to be ordinary people (poor therefore stupid). I wouldn’t have dared to steal from the rich (not stupid) – they would find out quickly.
I would need to steal from the masses. Masses can be easily tricked and then controlled. If I knew a thing or two about cryptocurrencies I would steal funds from the biggest cryptocurrency exchange (let’s call this exchange ‘’MtCocks’’). And let’s call the cryptocurrency ‘’Digitcoin’’.
1. Planning and securing the necessary resources:
I would for sure secure the availability of major actors.
There must always be a scapegoat in undertakings like this one (the robbed masses always need someone to blame), so the scapegoat would be the exchange’s CEO. I would offer him a soft landing after the theft. It would not be a problem for the masses to accept that MtCocks' CEO is the one to blame. Lots of fuckups happened (unexplained crashes, hacks, an accountant mistakenly executing huge orders, etc.) in the history of MtCocks. Masses had already been led to believe that they were ‘’coxed'’ many times in the past. There would be no problem in convincing the masses they were coxed again.
I would need the looted money to be liquidated somewhere unnoticed (in stealth mode). How could this be done? This could be handled in two ways:
- option 1: through existing exchanges using their dark pools – however there would be a risk of too many people knowing too much,
- option 2: through a new exchange that would need to be created for the purpose of routing the looted coins; the exchange would need to have a certain unique feature so that selling of the looted coins is unnoticed, e.g. the exchange shouldn’t report volume in its feed (you do not show volume = the public does not know how much coins are traded).
Which way should I go? Let’s say I would want to stay in the business of screwing people for a longer period, therefore my preference would be option 2.
I would of course secure MtCocks' market maker(s) for the undertaking. Let’s refer to this person or a group of persons as Miss Whale. Miss Whale will later be needed to transfer assets out of MtCocks.
For the final stage of the planned theft I would need to blind masses with excess of shitty and misleading information to focus their attention on the unimportant stuff. I needed them to be distracted from seeing what is being done. Like a magician who makes movement with his right hand to catch your attention on this hand, while pulling out a card from the left hand unnoticed.
The distraction should be muliti-track. Hey – it is a grand theft after all. The more tricks are played on the masses the better.
I would find a person with some M&A experience (therefore financial background) with a fancy name, like two-digit-wiseguy, so that a potential acquisition smokescreen could be played (to substantiate a takeover story).
I would find a concerned MtCocks' customer with a fancy name, like Burger King, so that a smokescreen of how MtCocks' CEO is a ruthless capitalist could be played (to substantiate a story that MtCocks' collapse is caused by CEO’s greed and that he stole all the funds for himself). MtCocks' CEO already agreed he would be a scapegoat.
I would find some guys who would be releasing IRC chat conversations with MtCocks' CEO to ‘’prove’’ how stupid and clueless he was so that a smokescreen of how MtCocks' CEO badly manages his company could be played (to substantiate a story that he is not a bad guy after all, just a dreamer who fucked up by wanting to create his business only on PHP code).
I might also need someone who is friends with all exchanges so that this person can influence other exchanges actions in case a joint statement is needed. Let’s call him Mr. X.
And for sure I would need someone who is liked by the masses. You know, just like Jesus was liked by the masses. This needed to be someone with a child’s face – people forget sins made in childhood.
2. Implementing the plan
Miss Whale would withdraw gradually funds from MtCocks over time and pour it into other exchanges. Mr X would reassure CEOs of other exchanges how beautifully their business are run and that their growth is organic due to their technical superiority over MtCocks. The CEOs would start to like Mr. X even more. Is there anything they wouldn’t do for Mr. X?
Next I would inspire the setting up of the new exchange. I have a sense of humour – I’d call it coinkaida. I would find respected investors. Coinkaida with its notable investors and under harsh jurisdiction can’t be doing anything inappropriate, right?
While volume on MtCocks would be declining and problems with withdrawals would start, Miss Whale’s interest would be threatened, I would then send the Jesus to tell the masses that the exchange I am going to rob is just fine. Although I wouldn’t fucking allow Jesus to read from a prompter! Someone might have later guessed it had been staged.
Jesus would do his job, masses would flood MtCocks with fiat. The price on MtCocks would be higher due to the rising demand. In result Digitcoins would start to pour into MtCocks to sell them there. I would be happy. Miss Whale would be happy. And guess what, the masses would be happy too.
As Miss Whale would increase her withdrawals from MtCocks, problems for masses would start again. It is when the final coxing should be done. It’s time for the first distraction (smokescreen): our brave Burger King. The video should be nice. People should get the message: poor guy with some coins deposited at MtCocks was troubled, he truly represented the masses. Let him be called the Hero of Digitcoin from now on in the media. Although I wouldn’t fucking send a guy whom MtCocks owned only 330 – it is not credible – Burger King couldn’t have afforded a trip to Tokyo and a 7 day stay in a hotel for himself and his buddy equipped with high quality video recorder - at least Burger King should have shaken and should have cried over all his assets being gone. And for sure MtCocks' CEO could have played better (he was not even scared), I should have invested a few pennies in acting lessons for the both before shooting this movie.
Last chapter: the inevitable dip in price would happen, Miss Whale would buy cheap digitcoins with all her fiat that was left on MtCocks. Miss Whale would quickly withdraw her coins (maybe some of her fiat and digitcoins would be left in MtCocks in case a proof was later needed to show that she lost too).
Since majority of assets deposited by masses in MtCocks would be magically made ‘’disappeared’’ or ‘’unaccounted for’’ with Miss Whale’s helping hand, withdrawals would be stopped.
Some notable people would utter statements that they did not believe MtCocks was in financial trouble (it was just a technical issue, as always), so the masses would be buying as price started to fall, and fall and fall and they would be still buying even more hoping the digitcoin price to finally bottom. But frankly the bottom was never to be seen. Stupid masses.
In some point in time as the bottom wouldn’t be hit I would order MtCocks' CEO to halt trading, put a blank page with the info MtCock would be acquired, to give some credibility to the story told by two-digit-wiseguy.
Simultaneously, Mr X would arrange for a joint statement of exchanges. I would need to make sure coinkaida’s CEO name is on top – this will be a ‘’proof’’ coinkaida’s CEO didn’t like that scammer, MtCocks' CEO. But I wouldn’t be fucking releasing the joint statement with word ‘’insolvency’’ in it! Someone might have later guessed it had been staged: how possibly could competing exchanges’ CEOs know MtCocks was insolvent without looking at MtCock’s financial statements first and without insider knowledge!
MtCocks would be empty now, Miss Whale would start to make market on coinkaida. Noone would see this happening as coinkaida wouldn’t report volume. I was really smart to devise this whole volume non-reporting thing. A new trading venue should typically offer more and better over the existing venues, but I somehow made a miracle by offering less and not going out of business (well, I knew lots of coxed money will later pour into this exchange anyway).
I knew people would start investigating were their money went. Hey – I am the smart guy – let’s create a CSI thread in which people will try to do the impossible (trace the coins starting from 2011 when MtCocks' CEO supposedly proved he had owned coins at that time).
It would be bad if they started to look for coins that were routed through the network around the last dip in price on MtCock with increased volume during which Ms Whale bought her last coins on MtCocks (and later transferred). I would be in risk if someone did this.
Now, I would be very happy. MtCocks' CEO filed for bankruptcy (civil rehabilitation) – no one will touch him. The official story would be MtCocks was hacked. My magicians would reveal MtCocks' source code and client database, which would prove beyond any doubt that MtCocks was simply hacked and that the official story is OK.
III. Question:
If you were criminally minded and wanted to steal $0.5 billion would you do something more than I in this fictional story? If yes, what would you do more, e.g. invite more actors?
If you were criminally minded and wanted to steal $0.5 billion, what wouldn’t have you done?
If you were the coxed one, how would you look for your looted coins and your looted fiat, if this completely fictional story were true?
