THELOGICALINDIAN - n-a
Another day, addition ailing dosage of boilerplate media FUD. This time, it’s Vox Magazine – which will assuredly adore some abrupt ballyhoo in the crypto apple as a aftereffect of an account on North Korea with Priscilla Moriuchi, an ex-NSA official who candidly said about annihilation at all in an account with the publication.
While it is acceptable to be bedeviled aloft with blitheness by those who misunderstand the purpose and attributes of Bitcoin and added agenda currencies, the commodity is added of an exercise in journalistic chain than alive information.
Consider the $64 actor catechism airish by Vox anchorman Alex Ward: “How big is North Korea’s cryptocurrency operation?”
Answer: “We don’t apperceive the scale.”
How about this gem: “Would you abode a bet that North Korea is application agenda bill in some way to advance its nuclear program?”
“I would bet that these bill are actuality angry into article – bill or concrete appurtenances – that are acknowledging North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program”.
So there you accept it! Except… wait. Moriuchi does not absolutely say to Ward, at any point, that there ARE in actuality coins. She referenced this in a altered account with ForeignPolicy.com during which she accepted that North Korea could accept fabricated amid $15M and $200M through agenda bread thefts.
In fact, back apprenticed on how “sketchy and illegal” Ward advised a small-scale mining operation that Moriuchi said she had seen, Moriuchi acclaimed that “…it’s not actionable in any way, clashing a lot of the things that North Korea is accomplishing today to accomplish funds: counterfeiting US dollars and cigarettes or affairs wildlife and actionable drugs.”
To put the cardinal “$15M” into angle back it comes to nuclear weapons development, it’s estimated that North Korea spends article amid $1.1B and $3.2B annually on the technology.
The numbers advance that cryptocurrency annexation has accounted for as little as 0.0047% of the anniversary amount of a North Korean nuclear plan. The USA is estimated to accept spent trillions of dollars on nuclear weapon development.
The botheration is not so abundant that addition article – in this case, a abomination nation alone by best of the apple – is possibly application agenda currencies for abominable purposes. (And they don’t get abundant added nefarious. Surely the abutting Bond villain will be a crypto-millionaire?)
Instead, it’s that the media will appropriate aloft this asset like a ’49er in a gold rush, and affirm triumphantly that this illustrates that abyss and terrorists are the primary users of agenda currencies like Bitcoin. It’s a affair that echoes through the halls of government barrio about the planet, and it’s accustomed acceptance by naysayers like Bill Gates (who, incidentally, doesn’t arise to be captivation the Internet to the aforementioned standard, admitting all of the admirable things it’s done for his aggregation – and arrears sex trafficking).
Yes, some bad actors use Bitcoin. And they additionally use dollars.
In fact, the sanctions we booty adjoin these bad actors are MEASURED in dollars, to accomplish us feel that we are actuality austere – and taken seriously. One BILLION dollars! That’s how abundant the latest annular of sanctions should aching North Korea according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Digital currencies are not the alone bad guys in the apple – and alike admitting Alex Ward of Vox never got a advantageous adduce out of the ex-NSA official, and had to await on “Pyongyang’s accomplishment at application cryptocurrencies” as a angle in the absence of annihilation concrete, you can bet that the media will accept a acreage day with this one.
NORTH KOREA BUILDING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WITH BITCOIN!
EVERYBODY PANIC!
