Why it Is Time to Sell Your Bitcoin and Exit the Cryptos

The time has come to exit Bitcoin, sell everything and exit the cryptos. Seems counterproductive, Bitcoin is hitting new highs, but there are several very good reasons for doing so at this time:

1) Bitcoin transactions are verified by other miners. A majority of the current hash rate controlled by miners is necessary to confirm and add a transaction to the blockchain. Control of the network is possible once 51% of the hash rate is achieved. With this control, an entity could forge and confirm any transaction, thus allowing theft and double spending of the Bitcoins.

China presently has over 65% of the hash rate controlled. It is only a matter of time before they exercise this control to steal bitcoins from rightful owners.

2) Bitcoin has made kidnapping profitable and safer. With Bitcoin, you can pay your own ransom. This has not been reported outside of the bitcoin community, but there have been several kidnappings of Bitcoin owners, who were set free only after transferring Bitcoin to wallets of their kidnappers. Little is known of Bitcoin owners who were not set free after surrendering their coins.

One such kidnapping was of the owner of a Bitcoin mining pool and another was of a Bitcoin Exchange owner. Being a Bitcoin whale now makes you a target for kidnappers. Knowing a persons Bitcoin wallet identification allows anyone to see their balance and transactions. Have you considered why the old practice of including ones Bitcoin wallet address on email signatures has disappeared.

3) In the case of kidnappers having a stash of Bitcoin from their most recent victim, cashing in the Bitcoin at Coinbase becomes problematic, since positive identification of the account holder is necessary and the money is only transferred to Wells Fargo or other US banks; which also have a “know your customer” policy.

The Bitcoin gained by the criminals, then needs to be made untraceable. This is done by sending it to one or more “mixers”. These are dark operations that launder the Bitcoin for a fee. The Bitcoin can be broken down into blocks of Satoshi, the crypto equivalent of changing a 100 dollar note for Ones and Quarters; or is sent to a large wallet of other Bitcoins, where it is added to the end of the line and the sender is sent Bitcoin from the front of the line.

The use of one mixer could result in an eventual trace to the kidnappers, so multiple mixers are often used.

4) It is only a matter of time before the US decides that the Bitcoin market is ripe for picking, or is a threat to the US Dollar. Even the mere mention of a possible Bitcoin ban will crash the price over 50%.

For the past 4 years, the US 1040 Income Tax Form has had a section which required the filer to disclose any interest in Bitcoin or other crypto-coins, irregardless of profit or loss. This was defacto registration, negating the anonymity of Bitcoin ownership. Coinbase and other exchanges have been required to disclose ownership and trades of all their accounts for the past 3 years.

Since Bitcoin is de-centralized, it cannot be controlled by any government as long as the internet is running; but, a government can institute a tax on Bitcoin profits and even on un-realized mark-to-market profits.

5) Bitcoin transactions are only possible as long as the internet is running, and electricity is available. In a SHTF scenario, all crypto will become unavailable and possibly extinct.

6) Bitcoin wallets can be impersonated, but at great effort. However, as computers evolve, the computer time needed to impersonate a Bitcoin wallet has been reduced from 500 years to 20 years. With the new quantum computers, that time will be reduced to seconds. At that point, any Bitcoin wallet could be emptied overnight.

7) Each Bitcoin wallet contains a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain, which is updated every 10 minutes. If you have a bitcoin wallet on your computer, you have a copy of the blockchain, and you now have kiddie porn on your computer.

When a new block is accepted by the blockchain, there is a space allocated for additional information. This space was designed to be used by the sender of Bitcoin to identify source or purpose of that transaction. This space has been misused, and is now polluted with kiddie porn and other data that would not be allowed on social media.

Such data is a permanent part of the blockchain and cannot be removed without forking the blockchain and creating a parallel coin.

This may also be true of blockchains for other cryptos.

So, my advice is to take your Bitcoin profits, and exit the cryptos.

Kalbo