South African Trader Robbed Of His Bitcoin! Hmmmm 🤔
Hey Steemians
So there's a local story making the rounds regarding bitcoin kidnapping. You can read all about it in the sources I've referenced below. To sum up, a crypto trader was contacted on Facebook and asked to do a presentation. He showed up at the designated place was held and extorted for 60K USD in crypto.
Cool story bro! This sounds kinda dumb, why would anyone even do that? Why would I have access to that much crypto going to a random place of someone I met on the internet? Things just dont add up for me!
This isn't the first kidnapping with Bitcoin involving SA a few months ago we saw one about a little boy. You can read about it in @joanstewart post here
People are sometimes trusting or do silly things but this story just rubs me the wrong way! Not saying it can't or didn't happen, just saying hey this isn't as black and white as it is made out to be!
Is Bitcoin great for clickbait journalism?
I'm not saying what happened to this person wasn't terrible. If its true by all means must be horrible to experience. I just can't shake the fact that no detail can be provided about this story, makes me seem like its fishy.
I'd have to say yes, I found several publications talking about this without any of them producing a single piece of evidence, its as if this story popped out of nowhere. No witness accounts, no details nothing!
When a local businessman got kidnapped a few months ago, it hardly made the local papers and they asked for more ransom than $60K US. They also give a ton of detail, what the businessman did, where he is from, quotes from his family.
But this story is as if Satoshi himself was the victim or Monero coin since everything is so uber private.
So my question is, would this story even make the papers if it wasn't bitcoin-related? My gut feel is no! We all know FUD sells papers so, by all means, get your Adsense revenue! Just don't expect me to hold up your site as a viable news source or have any journalistic integrity
How to keep your crypto safe
I would like to think my crypto is safe from physical access because I do not know a single passphrase to any of my wallets and my crypto lives across multiple wallets. They're all on a paper I don't keep on me, so I guess that's ok right?
Have your say
What do you think? Is this legit? Just FUD? Where do we draw the line on anonimity when writing a story? Let me know in the comments
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Sources:
Seems sketchy to me lol if there’s anything they like to do it’s give lots of details to keep rambling on
And those sites aren’t the most reputable reporting on it apart form maybe the citizen since they are a traditional newspaper too, but not apposed to shit posting lol! They’ve even referenced some one of my blog posts in an article once lol
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Lol nice, Che getting some internet fame? Next step BBC?
Cryptos are a bit like a new wild west. As long as there is money to be made, they will be scammers like this.
And the wider the public acceptance of cryptos will be the more scenarios like this will happen.
Stay safe kids.
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Agreed, people are still getting used to the idea of financial freedom from central authorities who have had us hooked for years. The tech is still pretty clunky and not intuitive to majority of end users so scammers will scam their tits off.
Crytpo is also heavily reliant on doing your own research which normies dont want to do and will get burned! Also normie journos shouldnt be producing content on the topic I feel
Yeah. Well. Normies bought Bitcoin December last year because of FOMO and now are crying that cryptos are a scam and that they lost all their savings.
Natural selection is everywhere. Even in cryptos. :D
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LOL that is pretty well put! I'm ready to make some gains on normie ignorance I'll admit, i'll keep stacking BTC in the mean time
When things like this pop up out of the blue I am super suspicious, never did hear any report back after this SA event either. It apparently happened in the UK as well around the same time, always keep checking if any official release is ever made after the event, more often than not it is a flash in the pan = BS.
Much like you I write everything down, especially the latest ultra long passwords that I will never remember, (also save to a couple of thumb drives, in case of emergency).
Most people never discuss their bank balance in fiat, why now do so many suddenly openly discuss earnings online, take selfies, then use a pseudonym. Any well seasoned hacker is able track your IP down if that is not secured via special routing.
Most using social media prefer to be authentic to find family and friends. Revealing numbers or passwords this is where security lies, keep yourself as safe as you are able, place your crypto into cold storage.
Thats so true, as if people never posted their credit card and CVV numbers online. there is only so much security that can stop stupidity and wrecklessness!
The fucktards live for this kind of news, instead of figuring things out and using common sense or even just noting oh hey that could happen better let no one know or be more careful they go and add to the stories so they can contribute to the confuckulation which sheeple live for.
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Like do some research, get some statements, maybe an interview that gives you some sort of crediblity, this story reads like a grade 10 learners essay. All normies are going to take from it is we all walking around with 1 million rand in our pockets and people can steal it from us at any time!
Regards appreciated @chekohler, I would not like to comment on the veracity or not of this article. I do not know if you can be part of a media campaign (positive or negative) regarding cryptocurrencies. What I can see is that it reaffirms the fact that the crypto is taking field more and more.
Only one idea comes to my mind: "adoption", "scalability".
All best, Piotr.
Agreed, the idea of crypto in the minds of the average user is still that of a scam or get reach quick scheme and using it for any sort of everday use is still highly technical compared to traditional payment methods. Its going to take some time for the front end use to meet mainstream needs but without scalablity and ease of use we cannot have adoption
Im sorry for such a late reply @chekohler
I just realized that I missed bunch of comments lately. Just wanted to thank you for keeping in touch with me.
Hopefully you had a great weekend,
Piotr