Bitcoin Bandits

by Chris Kale

  His cell phone buzzed. Again, he thought it might be his daughter. He pulled it from his pocket and found a text message from Anonymous.

  He unlocked it and opened the message. His eyes went wide at the message.

  I’ve found you’re investigating the BitX hack. . .

  Who is this? he typed and sent.

  The flickering of three dots appeared, showing the sender was typing.

  Be careful how far you dig the sender sent.

  Are you threatening a government agent? he sent.

  These are dangerous people, the sender sent, and it goes deep. Even the U.S. govt may not be able to get the Bitcoin back. They may even be involved. . .

  Who is this? Why are you telling me this? he sent.

  Again, the three dots bobbed up and down.

  Then the final message came through, and his eyes went wide again.

  It read: CryptoCunt - followed by an emoji of a yellow hand with two fingers raised, and spread apart, the symbol for peace.

  He laughed heartily, holding his belly. “Who the fuck is CrytoCunt?”

  Chapter Seven

  After his laughter waned, he wiped a tear from his eye. All alone in his hotel room, he repeatedly sent texts to the anonymous sender, but no replies were given.

  He stood, grabbed his government-issued phone and typed a message to Wyatt: Can you look into someone called CryptoCunt?

  Wyatt responded almost immediately. Will do.

  Thomas locked the phone and laid it down on the bed. But then it beeped from a new message, and he saw it was from Wyatt again.

  It read: I don’t know if I should be offended by that name or not, but I sort of like it.

  Right? Thomas responded, laying the phone back on the bed.

  Going over and sitting back in the chair, his attention went back to his laptop. Downton Abbey was still playing in the background. It was a scene with the butler and the main character who owned the house. Thomas always thought that the actor who played the butler had an amazing voice, one that should be reading lines during movie trailers.

  He went to Google once again and typed. Who is CryptoCunt?

  The first thing that appeared was from Forbes.com.

  That piqued his interest, he clicked it eagerly.

  The name of the article read: Scammer ICO foiled by online vigilante.

  “Vigilante? Interesting.”

  He read the article, it was a few pages long about an ICO, which he learned stood for Initial Coin Offering, something like an IPO in the stock world, or Initial Public Offering. Obviously this ICO was a scam, he thought, it’s called BuyMeCoin. He shook his head with a chuckle.

  “What is this crap, and who is buying this?”

  Anyways, he got to the part where it mentioned the vigilante. They had to censor the name, they had an interesting way of covering it up though, even if it was wordy. Crypto-See-You-Next-Tuesday. Apparently, this vigilante was a famous—or infamous—hacker who had gotten quite the reputation from rooting out these fraudulent ICOs who were luring investors into buying—sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars—of these so-called ‘shit-coins,’ hoping that they would explode in value after the initial offering.

  But these scams always crumbled afterword, only leaving a vanished website and vanished funds.

  But CryptoCunt was able to find the true identities of the scammers, and sent all the information needed to the authorities in whatever country they were in. These individuals were in Singapore.

  Thomas wasn’t a big fan of big government, he thought the electoral college was enough evidence that it was all rigged, but he knew even that the SEC was big-brothery, but it protected lower and middle-class people from schemes like these.

  That’s why IPOs are securities, he thought, and why they need approval from the SEC.

  And it looked like, by the appearance of this article, that CryptoCunt was living up to her name. He or she was saving investors untold amounts of money, but infuriating the people running these scams. CryptoCunt had a ten-thousand Ether reward for her identity. That doesn’t seem like much. . . He found out though Ether was short for Ethereum—one of the largest cryptocurrencies. And the dollar equivalent to that was well over a million.

  A knot formed in his stomach, sending a sudden surge of anxiety—or thrill—into him. It might be likened to the super sense some well-known arachnid superhero might get when danger was looming.

  It came to him like crashing lightning that the case he was going to investigate now not only had a brutal murder in its wake, but seemingly one of the most notorious—and wanted—hackers in this space was warning him about going further into it.

  He couldn’t deny it. He was getting excited. Thomas cracked his knuckles and shifted in his seat. Too often his job was finding that one shitty accountant who tried to walk away with millions. But this was a real case. Billions were involved. He wanted to know now more than ever who stole this Bitcoin. 585,000 Bitcoin to be exact.

  He popped out his cell again and tried to contact the hacker again, but ten minutes passed and no response.

  Googling her again, he found more articles from less-accredited websites. Many of them were cryptocurrency websites, and most had the word coin in them. He found more of the same. . . stories of her revealing the identities of scammers and thieves.

  “What do young people use to communicate now?” he asked himself, scratching the stubble on his cheek. An idea popped into his head, he shrugged, and typed into the Google search bar—CryptoCunt Twitter.

  It was the first thing that came up. He clicked on it, and sure enough, there she was—at least he assumed it was a she from her chosen gender on the page. The profile picture was of a unicorn in a gallop with a rainbow-painted horn on the top of its head. The background picture was of Saddam Hussein and a massively barrel-chested red devil together from the series South Park.

  The Twitter account had over one-hundred thousand followers, but only followed five. Scrolling down, it was filled with tweets from every couple of days. These tweets only said one thing each and were loaded with retweets and responses. The most recent tweet simply said XRPGoldCoin.

  “Hmm. . .”

  The next, IceDragonCoin.

  He scrolled down quickly and saw there were dozens of these tweets, each with retweets in the tens of thousands.

  His government cell signaled a text coming in. He unlocked it to find a text from Wyatt.

  She’s a low-level hacker. Only appeared on the scene six months ago under that name. So far very good at remaining anonymous. Believed to be somewhere in the Baltic countries. Under investigation by the Swedish government, but there’s no real push to get her yet. The only laws she reportedly broke were breaching private servers and leaking the information to authorities. All of the leaked information led to some sort of investigation. Why’d you ask about her?

  Thomas texted back: She contacted me, warned me about the case.

  Wyatt quickly texted back: I bet you enjoyed that.

  Then Thomas replied: You know it.

  Chapter Eight

  In a dimly lit, empty-walled apartment in the eastern part of the world, a doorknob turned and a killer entered. Niklas grunted, still wearing the same clothes he’d had on back in Joon’s condo. He unholstered his Glock and knife and lay them on a nightstand by the twin-size bed. Pulling his shirt off over his head, he grabbed a garbage bag from a roll next to the nightstand and threw the black tank-top into it.

  He removed his boots, grabbed a spray bottle of bleach, and sprayed the bottoms of them. Niklas took a cloth with a strong smelling cleaner and wiped the rest of them clean. He stood, walked to the kitchen in the corner of the small apartment, opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of dark beer from it, leaving the remaining bottles clinking against one another. Pressing the edge of the bottle cap against the cheap, chipped, linoleum counter, he hit the top of the bottle with his fist. Swilling the beer, and leaning against the counter, his muscles bulged in the dim lig
hts of the one light on the nightstand, and the dull, green light that came from the oven clock.

  Niklas took another deep gulp, and after laying the bottle on the counter, leaving a light pool of condensation, he knelt in the corner of the kitchen. Between a set of drawers and the oven was a panel, an empty spot in the corner that wasn’t meant to hold anything behind it. Niklas dug his nails into the sides of it and jerked it free. Reaching into the darkness, he gripped the handle of a briefcase. Pulling out the black, leather briefcase with silver locks and hinges, he laid in on the countertop.

  In the bare apartment that screamed bachelor, with its faded and stained carpet and lack of any form or thought of decorating—Niklas cracked the briefcase open with a pop, and his blue eyes lit up. Inside the neatly organized briefcase were dozens of tiny pockets that lined the top and bottom of it. Most of the contents were hidden in these pockets, but a few things spilled out from these thin pockets: the top of a golden pen, what appeared to be a crucifix attached to a chain, the finger-holes for a small pair of sheers that you might use to clip ear-hairs.

  He pulled out one of the ten USB drives from Joon’s place, and held it up to the light of the lamp on the nightstand, a sinister grin crossed his face. His blue eyes grew dark, his white teeth clenched tightly, and he turned the drive end over end, eying it meticulously.

  Niklas turned back to the case, and as he slid the drive into one of the empty, red satin pockets, his grin faded, and in a flat tone, he said, “Bye Joon.”

  After the drive was snuggly slid into the pocket, he gave the contents of the case one last glance of appreciation, closed it, slid it back into the hidden compartment and popped the false-panel back into place.

  Chapter Nine

  Oslo, Norway

  In another part of the world, flooded with bright sunlight a second-story apartment painted a crimson red, a woman lies back in a gaming chair on the floor, a PS4 controller clenched tightly in her hands. The sounds of the automatic gunfire filled the room, explosions from grenades and remote mines burst out. On the screen mounted on the wall, the top of a Titan LMG moved quickly in between buildings and crept around corners firing at anything that moved with its 75-capacity clip.

  There was an explosion on the screen, and a box popped up that read ELIMINATED. Another character leaped over her then, the gun that he’d used to kill her avatar was held firmly in his hands.

  “Damn it,” Freyja said, reaching over to a black, boxy table next to the gaming chair. She grabbed a silver pen from it and put it to her rosy lips. She pressed a button on the top of the pen, inhaled, removed it then placed it back on the table. It let out a great plume of vapor into the room. She stood up, stretching her long arms up over her head, and went over to the window. Opening the window from the bottom, her chest-length hair whipped in the breeze as the sounds of the city entered her apartment.

  Her green eyes peered out at the city, with the trendy-looking pedestrians walking around in tight pants and finely-made shirts. They weren’t all dressed that way, but in Freyja’s mind, they may all as well be. Her wavy blond hair dyed a faded black rustled, tickling her neck. Her hair held half-inch roots that revealed her true, blond Nordic side. She wore black eyeliner, she had applied mascara in the morning, that made her look like a mix between a model and a goth Nine Inch Nails fan, with her five-foot-eleven height, elegant face, and thin frame.

  The sunlight reflected off a silver piercing in her cheek, just where her left dimple was, and another piercing through her left eyebrow. In the studio room, neatly organized, decorated with abstract replications of paintings, and furnished with stainless silver appliances in the kitchen, and an elaborate computer desk with two monitors, a dully-buzzing computer underneath that looked like it may belong in some science fiction story, a cell phone buzzed on the glass computer desk. It was one of three phones strewn closely together at the corner of the table.

  Freyja reached down and she brought it up to her. The cell phone was an unusual make. It wasn’t an iPhone or an Android. It was a black flip phone with no markings of a brand. She flipped it open, and on the screen was a message from the sender, Thomas Merten, it said: I’d like to talk more.

  Shutting the phone, she laid it back on the table with a clink.

  She made her way to the fridge behind the countertop adorned with two action figures, one of a popular character from the world-famous cartoon Dragon Ball Z—Goku in the process of going Super Saiyan. Spiky golden hair jutted out from his angular head, and he was positioned against a much smaller yellow round cartoon character with its characteristic yellow and black tail that rose up from its rear, almost as big as its body—Pikachu.

  Taking the coffee pot from the machine, Freyja poured herself a small cup and began to make her way back to the mounted television, and the war and chaos that awaited her. But she stopped halfway there when an alarm sounded from the computer with the two monitors. It was the soft ring of an old-style text message. Sitting in her chair, she set the coffee down, brushed her wavy hair back behind her shoulders, and moved the mouse.

  The computer buzzed to life, as the graphics cards flew into motion, humming loudly below. The two monitors went from matte-black to a dazzling array of lights, as she clicked a white remote next to her that caused the electric blinds to lower and close tightly, causing the room to almost only be lit in the lights of the TV and the monitors.

  Upon the monitors was a cluttered mix of red graphs rising and declining upon a black background with an arrangement of options, numbers, and indicators a stock trader may understand quite well. A chat box was looming open, and a dark-gray download box had a solid blue line flashing in its center—and it read: Download Complete.

  “Sweet,” Freyja said to herself, her voice was soft, and a smile came to her face.

  Her fingers went to motion then, sweeping across the keyboard like a seasoned musician on her piano. Her hands danced over the keys with smooth and deliberate swiftness. The dialog box closed with the download complete message. An e-mail box popped up, and after checking a couple of settings—that multiple VPNs were in effect, that her own coded Firewall, as well as several other ‘illegal’ operations that kept her anonymity. She sent out a flurry of e-mails to pre-designated addresses, one of which was to the Ministry of State Security (in China). The top line read:

  Evidence of individuals committing computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and overall just being thieving assholes.

  She attached the download, and sent the message to a dozen addresses, including media outlets in China, and even one in the USA.

  At the bottom of each message she signed off with her normal moniker, and name that was making her just as much a villain as an internet warrior—CryptoCunt.

  Grabbing one of the three cell phones from the table then, she unlocked it, and opened one of the many apps on the phone—Twitter. She began a new tweet and finished it quickly. All it read was: FreedomCoin—more like con.

  She sighed and unlocked the phone. Looking at Thomas’ text, she thought about the doozy of a hack he was about to start investigating. She’d found his name on one of those dark web websites that released hacked government files. Freyja also knew the depth of what was going on at BitX was deeper than just a normal hack.

  Typing into the phone, she sent off a quick message that simply read: What do you want to know?

  Chapter Ten

  The sun glistened off the waves of the vast Pacific Ocean, but at that height they looked like tiny ripples of gold. Thomas sat in a window seat looking out at the thin, trailing clouds lit in the first light of the sun. In his headphones he listened to a famous YouTuber going over the daily cryptocurrency market.

  Thomas was amused by the youth of the fellow on the screen of his phone, he looked more like a kid just starting out at a bank than someone as popular as this fellow was.

  He does know what he’s talking about with the markets and market cycles though. His TA (technica
l analysis) is spot on.

  On this long flight to Seoul he’d decided to research what crypto was going through and use the more popular veins of media in which these experts communicated. It appeared from his quick research that Twitter, along with these ‘coin’ websites, and the occasional YouTube video were good places to start.

  He was less concerned about the technology behind it all, although he was fascinated by the idea of essentially people being their own ‘banks.’

  Right now, as he watched the golden clouds floating by, and popping a few salted peanuts in his mouth, the YouTuber was talking about how that with Bitcoin falling in price, the entire rest of the market was falling. All these other coins were going down with it—faster even. He said other names Thomas was beginning to become familiar with; Ethereum and Litecoin. He was reminded by the video-kid that Bitcoin soaked up a full half of the market.

  Thomas was reminded of something he’d heard about cryptocurrencies months ago. It was about how the man discussing them was comparing them to the giant tech bubble that happened around the year 2000. Ironically, the YouTuber started to talk about that comparison. Thomas had been there through the time when people were losing money hand over fist after some companies were finding growth of over two-thousand percent in a year, but that all came crashing down after the bubble burst.

  The YouTuber was talking about the difference in market cap between the two. The dot com bubble had a full seven trillion dollars in the market, while cryptocurrency was much, much smaller than that. But the real difference (investment-wise) was that the bubble was led by institutional investors; I.e. banks, government, and corporations. When the retail investors went in, it was too late, and they lost the money. With crypto, it was only retail people in now, and sure some governments and banks were buying, but not really, not yet. . .