I don’t typically submit posts to this sub, but like many here I think Buttcoin is a scam. I admit, I used to trade it back in the day. I bought hundreds of them for a few bucks and traded them for fun when they were just getting popular. I even kept a few on a wallet and totally forgot about them until the price was around 10k and ended up finding them and selling them right away for a nice little profit.
But I’ve always thought they were a weird novelty that clearly served the purpose of transferring money in an obscure way, mostly for nefarious reasons. Obviously they were a good way to buy drugs, and I assume some shady figures have used them to launder money, especially in the early days.
Today I was reading the Mueller report, and it mentions 3 Russian military units engaging in cyber espionage. One of the units specifically exists to mine bitcoins. The information about these units and their operations are redacted, unfortunately.
The mention of this bitcoin unit got me thinking about Russian involvement in bitcoin because in the early days, I remember thinking crypto was probably created by some intelligence service or government in order to trick people into donating their computing power in exchange for stupid internet money. However, I think I found a more plausible answer to why bitcoin exists.
While this is just speculation at this point, I think the Russians may be diverting state-sponsored investment funds using bitcoin. My theory is this: the Mueller report details a meeting Putin had with major oligarchs following the 2016 election, warning large banks that they need to make in-roads with the new administration because he expects the US to impose sanctions for Russian activities. These Russian bankers develop relationships with the administration through Kushner and his hedge fund buddy, hoping to get some insight into the new administration’s plan for future sanctions. Who knows what was discussed, but I don’t think the bankers got all the info they hoped for.
Fast forward to 2017. The Russia investigation becomes public. If you look at the timeline of events related to the investigation, especially concerning US figures who played a role in negotiating future easing of sanctions on Russia, they seem to correlate with the extreme price rise in bitcoin.
March 31, 2017 - Mike Flynn offers to testify about his meetings with Russia (this date marks almost the EXACT date bitcoin begins its huge rise)
June 12, 2017 - Senate passes sanctions bill (Bitcoins sets ATH just days before)
August 4, 2017 - Trump reluctantly signs bill into law (bitcoin sets new ATH less than one month after)
However, even though Trump signs the sanctions into law, he drags his feet for months and refuses to announce who the sanctions will apply to. Eventually, he announces he will have a list of sanctioned parties by the end of January 2018. It seems odd to me that between the time Trump signs the sanctions into law and the time they go into effect, bitcoin literally rises 3000% after the law is signed, and falls 1500-2000% just before they go into effect.
I feel like once the Russians knew the sanctions were certain, the administration wasted time to give the Russians time to launder their money, and a lot of it was moved through bitcoin and that is the only reason the price was so high for such a small amount of time.
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