In a postscript to my essay The Humpty Dumpty Emperors (TPN 20-02-25)) I related the breaking news that the biggest theft in crypto history had occurred in Dubai. Unknown hackers had stolen US$ 1,500,000,000 from a single Safe(Wallet), a third party crypto infrastructure provider, contracted to the Bybit currency exchange platform.

An investigation made by Israeli-owned Sygnia has identified egregious gaps in the security for Bybit´s storage system for clients´ digital assets. It has suggested that the thief could be the north Korean Lazarus Group which is thought to use JavaScript malware to divert funds that were being channeled through the block-chain system.

Bybit state that the loss has been covered by its own cyber resilience scheme but it has created a team of its employees to work with Sygnia towards better cyber security which will eliminate further pirating. However, this disgraceful admission of how easy it is for platforms to be attacked has sent shock waves through an industry which was forecasting record growth for year 2025.

This ambition has, of course, been strongly influenced by the election of Donald Trump as 47th President. Throughout his electoral campaign he enthused over what he saw as being a very advantageous innovation in financial dealing and has included in his inner cabinet many investors and dealers in this cyber currency. He is also very much influenced by the likes of Elon Musk who is said to have demanded that all real estate deals on Mars should be conducted in $Trump or $Doge.

On Sunday, 02 March, Trump announced that the U.S. government would be buying Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and ADA to form a U.S. Crypto Strategic Reserve. ADA (Cardona) immediately soared in value by 70% and the other cyber-currencies followed suit which put some billionaires well on the way to being trillionaires. Criticism that the new Reserve can be likened to a Hedge Fund was well received with the argument that it makes sense in the current global financial markets to bet cyber units against the dollar which should be boosted against weaker international currencies.

Undoubtedly, the billionaires of other countries – especially those located in China, India, Germany and Russia - will all share the boost to their great fortunes as will millionaires of a lesser degree. But the values have to come from someone´s pocket. Guess who.

by Roberto Cavaleiro - Tomar 07 March 2025