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Where Did WikiLeaks' $25 Million Bitcoin Fortune Go? (thedailybeast.com)

Everyone from early investors to cybercriminals has benefited from the huge spike in the value of bitcoin in the past few weeks. It's a boon for one other outfit that has likely racked up tens of millions of dollars' worth of the cryptocurrency: WikiLeaks. Joseph Cox, reporting for The Daily Beast: The transparency organization may be sitting on a stockpile of bitcoin valued at around $25 million, and has likely exchanged several other large cryptocurrency caches for fiat cash, according to two sources who independently analyzed WikiLeaks's bitcoin transactions. "Last wallet looks like his piggy bank," John Bambenek, a security expert who has previously tracked Neo-Nazis' use of bitcoin, told The Daily Beast, pointing to a specific bitcoin address believed to be linked to WikiLeaks. Since at least 2011, WikiLeaks has allowed supporters to send bitcoin donations. As noted by James Ball, a journalist and former WikiLeaks staffer, whoever is in control of this address -- presumably WikiLeaks -- moved around 3,000 bitcoin, worth $800 each, into a series of other accounts on one day in December 2013.

2 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. What's with Slashdot's "nazi" obsession lately? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Between this submission and this other submission that's currently on the front page, the word "nazi" appears 8 times!

    Do you know how many times "linux" appears on the front page right now? Zero!

    Do you know how many times "programming" appears on the front page right now? Zero!

    "internet" only appears twice.

    Are Slashdot's editors just imitating the mainstream media and leftists, who have been falsely accusing all sorts of people of being "nazis" lately?

    Frankly, this kind of misuse of the term "nazi" only serves to dilute the meaning of that term.

    It's getting to the point where when people hear the term "nazi" and they just figure it's yet another false accusation made to attack a political opponent, the shrug their shoulders, and ignore it.

  2. A fashion industry for words. by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The term of choice used to be "racist", but that's been so overused in the past year and a half that they have to switch to using another word.

    I've been following the zeitgeist of this. Until around December of last year, people would flee from the word, conceding the argument to whoever first uses the word to describe the other side. Then in December people started ignoring the word a little, then Jan/Feb people were like "meh" about it, and around March people started (note: started, not widely) embracing the word.

    Then "OK, I'm racist" started popping up, but it wasn't really attached to the *person*, it was attached to the position. One could say "OK, I'm racist" for posting an opinion about strong immigration control. Or "OK, I'm racist" for posting an opinion about limiting visas or voter ID.

    Through the summer, "racist" started to be applied to just about everything. Tigers are racist. Perfectionism is a form of racism. Two white parents having a white child is racist. I'm not making that last one up, it's "[...] one of the most powerful forces supporting white supremacy" - don't you know?

    Now racist has completely lost its meaning. No one online seems to pay any attention to it at all.

    Sexual assault is pretty big right now, but it's fading fast. It was a flash in the pan with people like Harvey Weinstein, but quickly got more ridiculous. You can tell it's on it's way out because Fart rape is a thing.

    (Side note: "Trump is literally Hitler" is pretty-much dead, the last nail in that coffin was recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel.)

    So now they need a new word, and it's probably going to be nazis for awhile. Expect this to go on for a couple of months and get progressively more ridiculous, probably though the primaries of next year.

    Then Ramadan comes up (May 15 to June15), many terrorist actions will make the news cycle(*), and it's likely that "Islamaphobe" will be the word of the day.

    It's basically the fashion industry for words.

    (*) Just extrapolating from past years, such as last year viz. London. OK, I'm racist.