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15 minutes ago•••
When nprofile1qqsxvns8pl39uakaema9fy5uphjzajkssyqfx5r7yn0yvgs828xm02spzdmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ue0djmwfv adds Nostr login...
24 minutes ago•••
I told you, didn’t I?
To the sensitive ones, don’t come crying later. Bitcoiners spend 2 to 3 years hearing nonsense, but then the tears of the nocoiners could fill a pool.
Now deal with it 🤣
28 minutes ago•••
🚨 USA 🇺🇸 /Russia 🇷🇺 /Ukraine 🇺🇦 : With two months left in his term, the president has authorized for the first time the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia, according to the New York Times.
Detail: Biden made the announcement on Brazilian soil (Brics country) Biden is in Manaus.
32 minutes ago•••
Brazil 🇧🇷 / USA 🇺🇸 : If anyone finds Biden lost in the Amazon rainforest, please return him to the address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC in a White House there.
38 minutes ago•••
In November 2021, American police surrounded a lakeside mansion in Georgia.
In the basement, they found a safe.
Inside, there was $661,000 in cash, gold bars, and a jar of Cheetos.
The jar held 51,680.32 Bitcoins.
To understand how this fortune ended up there, we need to know James "Loaded" Zhong – the owner of the mansion.
A classic nerd, he loved exploring obscure forums online.
In 2009, one post in particular caught his attention.
Eight years later, James would become one of the biggest #Bitcoin whales.
Curious, Zhong mined a few thousand #BTC at home, just to see what would happen.
He had just entered college with near-perfect entrance exam scores.
Like any 18- or 19-year-old, he spent a good portion of his #BTC on parties.
Alcohol, psychedelics, and other harder stuff.
Ironically, James's addiction made him even richer.
For convenience, he started buying his powder from a site called Silk Road, the largest Bitcoin marketplace of the time.
Then, one day, when he went to withdraw #BTC from the site, our protagonist encountered something unexpected...
The site was incredibly slow.
Impatient, James started clicking the "withdraw" button furiously 😤
When he checked his wallet, he was stunned to see he had received DOUBLE the balance he actually had to withdraw 😮
He blinked, checked again. And voilà.
He had just found the real-life "Klapaucius."
Silk Road had a flaw that allowed users to exploit a second function while the program was performing another task.
In this case, "double-spending bitcoin."
In the following days, Zhonginho lived the happiest time of his life ☺️
He drained about 8% of the site's reserves 😱
He then reported the bug to the Silk Road owner and, as a reward, received some extra coins.
He sent 40,000 BTC to one address and 10,000 to another, where they remained for almost a decade.
James Zhong, at 22 years old, was now one of the largest Bitcoin holders on the planet 👑
What would you do if you had 50k #BTC stashed away? 🤔💭
James chose to make waves online.
I bet many of you would do the same.
He pretended to be an "asset manager" on Bitcointalk and built a legendary persona, one that would go down in history.
His name there was "LOADED" 🔫
The theft happened in 2012.
Zhong's coins were worth $1 million. He entered college "with life sorted."
But #BTC went from $10 to $1000 between 2012 and 2014 📈
By the time he graduated at 24, his coins were worth over $30 million.
He bought a house, a car – and started funding the party for his "friends."
Up until then, he had only spent the BTC he earned from mining.
If he had kept it that way, he probably would have never been caught.
But, intoxicated by euphoria, he made a mistake…
... and planted the seed of his downfall during his 3rd bull cycle in 2017.
At the height of the #Bitcoin "civil war," LOADED got carried away on Bitcointalk.
He challenged Roger Ver to a $20M bet, #BTC vs. BCash.
To prove his seriousness, he signed a message with the key to a wallet containing $44M in BTC.
But then, "on-chain rats" entered the scene...
... and soon they linked the wallet to the infamous address 1DkyBEK...
... widely known for its connection to the Silk Road drain, years prior.
🫥 After this revelation, LOADED disappeared from the forum and never posted again.
He knew he had made a huge mistake.
And it seemed he already anticipated the worst.
The 2017 bull run arrived, and James switched to "heir" mode.
The #BTC he had mined at $10 were now worth $10,000.
He bought several Lambos, rented yachts, traveled the world, and invested nearly $10M in real estate.
The flaunting didn't go unnoticed.
Then, on a fateful night in 2019...
James' house was robbed.
They took $400K in cash.
The broken windows shook our Bitcoin mogul.
He called the police, and a case was opened.
The investigation went nowhere.
The thief was never caught.
But the case caught the attention of the IRS...
After all, who keeps $400K in cash at home?!
They requested browsing records from Jaminho's ISP 👀
Mapped his wallets.
And eventually, they uncovered the connection first mentioned on Bitcointalk years earlier:
between LOADED wallets... and the original hacker from Silk Road 🫢
James never sold any of the BTC stolen from Silk Road.
The site’s owner even thanked him for reporting the bug.
He would have remained free if it weren't for that message and that bet in 2017.
Or, thinking about it, maybe it was just a matter of time before he got caught 🤔
Social deprivation was Zhong's Achilles heel.
Fortune had made him forget Rule No. 1 of Fight Club.
CNBC has a good document. on.
He received undercover agents, showed them suitcases of money he used to impress girls, and opened a laptop with 1,500 #BTC
James lived a movie-worthy life from 21 to 33 🎞️
Imagine watching #Bitcoin soar from $5 to $50K 🚀😱
A 10,000x increase in value.
And unlike some Faria Limers out there, this guy had no fear of "not being sufficiently allocated."
He was LOADED.
This is the story of one of the biggest WHALES in Bitcoin history:
James "Loaded" Zhong 🐳
James was convicted last year for money laundering at the age of 33.
He was arrested in Alabama in July 2023.
And that's how we ended up at the mansion siege in Georgia on 11/9/21.
The second-largest seizure in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice:
$661.9K in cash51,680.32 #BitcoinMillions in real estateMillions in precious metals
With the billions stored in the Cheetos jar, he could have bought over 7,000 houses like the one Zhong lived in.
Everyone has that friend who invested in #bitcoin early and became a bon vivant...
... but imagine being friends with LOADED?!
They say he handed out paper wallets of #BTC at night to everyone. Paid for trips. VIP access.
In the end, none of his friends were seen at the trial.
1 hour ago•••
The case for edits: naddr1qqyxzepcx3jnxc3nqgsrhuxx8l9ex335q7he0f09aej04zpazpl0ne2cgukyawd24mayt8grqsqqqa28exfmh7
Derek Ross replied 1 hour ago
1
4 hours ago•••
I feel overwhelmed but hungry to learn at the same time. It’s not easy sitting down to understand something completely new, but I know how important it is - it’s just something I feel. I’m not trying to frustrate anyone who’s ahead of me, especially developers and others in this space who seem to have it all figured out. I know I come off ignorant sometimes. I’m genuinely trying to learn, even if it takes me longer than I’d like to absorb these concepts.
What’s tough is seeing people talk down to those of us who are still figuring it out. But for the ones who’ve taken the time to help me or even just been patient - thank you. It means a lot.
I’ve picked up a lot already, and I’m trying to put it into action. I’ve got my own node running now, downloaded Bitcoin Core, and have the blockchain accessible so I can have at least some privacy in my transactions. Even messing around with my own miner. That’s a big step for me, and it feels good. There’s still so much I don’t know.
I want to learn how to run a private relay, but it’s hard to figure out right now. I’m in this weird place - between houses and not making much money - so my options feel limited. But I’m trying to do what I can.
Ultimately, I’m just a photographer, musician, and Bitcoin pleb trying to get it right. I’m grateful for the community here and for the people who push me to keep learning, even when it’s uncomfortable. I just wanted to get this out there - thanks for listening.
Also, I do have some more photography prints that I’ll share later if anyone is interested. Trying to lighten the load 🤘🏼
#grownostr #plebchain #bitcoin
❐ PictureRoom replied 2 hours ago
2
3 hours ago•••
nprofile1qqszrdqezqk63lqt4yzgftkfxjl4tdatea67akeezf8g6a0yj86p5hsppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddakj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgh8w6twv5hs7hzcmq should Busch Light be the official beer of nprofile1qqsv83ejztakekydrtxp3a5yn3nqc34re9et7knkd3vn35rynlwuklqpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtc6lrmfy?
3 hours ago•••
There's going to be a Nostr booth at the upcoming FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium on February 1 and 2, 2025.
What's FOSDEM? Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) is a non-commercial, volunteer-organized European event centered on free and open-source software development.
It looks like there are a lot of good stands that compliment Nostr's ethos that are going to be there. If I was there, I would go around to every single booth and talk to them about Nostr, connecting with each and every one of them, tying their products and services into Nostr's ethos, and hopefully getting them to create brand and/or personal accounts. 🔥
Derek Ross replied 3 hours ago
1
4 hours ago•••
When you're subjected to Terms of Service, you're not sovereign
Eliminate TOS from your life
Unit of a Count replied 3 hours ago
1
4 hours ago•••
#Bitcoin Industry is trusted 3rd parties
4 hours ago•••
#Bitcoin eliminates trusted 3rd parties
3rd parties like #MSTR are trying to convince you to give them your sovereignty
5 hours ago•••
People are discounting your direct access to your individual freedom to the #Bitcoin Network
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