From a non-US citizen, the riot that happened in US Congress was a total shock.
The scene of disorderly and agitated mob attacking and destroying government properties seemed so surreal. I thought that only happens in poor countries like mine. It was indeed an enlightenment to see that even with mature democratic countries like in the US, riots like these can happen. My takeaway is that we should not take democracy and rule of law take for granted.
Democracy is an on-going project that can be hijacked when we least expect it. But was this unanticipated and unavoidable crisis?
It seems evidence is surfacing now that the Capitol Riot was not a spontaneous event but rather planned and premeditated. And guess what? Our dear Bitcoin has something to do with it, hence, this blog in this crypto-oriented website.
According to various traditional media outlets, a month prior to the attack in the US Congress, several far-right individuals based in the US received Bitcoin donations from overseas. The donor used a French exchange to transfer 28.15 BTC, worth approximately $522,000 at the time of the transfer, to 22 separate addresses in a single transaction last December 8, 2020. Many of those addresses belong to far right activists and internet personalities such as Nick Fuentes, Ethan Ralph and VDARE, an anti-immigration organization.
Using publicly available data, Chainanalysis.com that one BTC address is associated with a legacy wallet registered on NameID, a service that allows users to link their online identity, email address, and other information with their Bitcoin address. In this case, the donor associated his Bitcoin address with the pseudonym “pankkake.”
Further investigation led investigators from Chainanalysis.com to his personal blog containing a very recent post published in December 9, a day after he made the donations.
Suicide Note?
Chainanalysis.com published the personal blog of pankkake which can be found in this Blog. The blog has the title, "The End" and was written in simple notepad. Reading the blog evokes scenes straight from mystery movie where there is a lifeless body and near it a suicide note. Even the text was unbelievably familiar. It opens with a following statement like this,
"If you're reading this, I am deceased. This is a scheduled message made to be published in the future: thus there is no chance that I survived"
It appears that pankake was suffering from terminal disease for the past 8 years. In this blog, he expressed despair over hopeless of Western Civilizations' wont for self-flagellation, self-loathing, rejection of ancestors and heritage. These two reasons seemed to be the factors which drove him to end his life.
A further thorough reading of his blog, reveals a lot of things about his philosophical views which is shadowed by overemphasis of the media on his extremist views.
I see him as deeply philosophical, with views leaning towards existentialism. In this note, he felt regret of not having a religion nor meaning of life.
He was a also a firm believer of the power of science, in his own words, "I thought for a long time that I would become immortal through scientific progress."
And without judgment as to the correctness of his views, this person cares about his convictions that he bequeath a considerable sum of his properties to causes and individuals which share his views.
What do you think Dear Reader about this cryptic death note? Please comment below.
References:
https://decrypt.co/54187/bitcoin-was-used-to-finance-pro-trump-capitol-riot-reports
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/capitol-riot-bitcoin-donation-alt-right-domestic-extremism
