“Generali has not invested in bitcoin and neither have I as a citizen”. Philippe Donnet, number one of the Leone company, this is how he responded this morning in the "Financial Times Managing Assets for Insurers". “When you look at the global economy – she explains – it is already difficult to understand what will happen to rates and inflation, which are basic concepts. For cryptocurrencies it is even more complex”. But Donnet himself adds that the phenomenon is now so widespread that a player of Generali's caliber cannot simply ignore it. “We have to understand. We will not take the risk of investing in cryptocurrencies because we fail to understand what the associated risks are”.
Donnet's perplexities reflect well the uncertainties of big finance, held back by the danger of scams, criminal actions or even just by the extreme volatility of prices (bitcoin has left 40% of its maximum on the ground). But, in return, reluctant to overlook the developments of a market that is establishing itself on a global level. In recent months the system has logged numerous successes: Paypal and Square have started accepting bitcoin payment; the Coinbase platform, now listed on Wall Street with a capitalization of 47 billion dollars (about half of its debut), allows you to buy and sell cryptocurrencies in the open. And last weekend, reports the New York Times, an investor convention was held in Miami attended by 12 people, including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and testimonials like Flouyf Mayweather Junior, former heavyweight champion.
During the conference the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, a former entrepreneur of Middle Eastern origin, has anticipated a bill to make bitcoin the legal means of payment of the country which, in practice, relies on remittances from emigrants to the USA, about a quarter of the 6 million citizens. Bukele himself presented a video shot inside a Salvadoran volcano, now extinct. “Our engineers – he said – have dug a well allowing high pressure water vapor to be released into the air which can supply clean energy to the Bitcoin mines”.
Lots of news, in short, but the turning point, sensational, arrived on Monday evening from none other thanFBI. Within a few days, the feds identified 63,7 of the 75 bitcoins (that is, $2,3 million of the 4,3 million) paid by the top Colonial Pipeline, theUS pipeline paralyzed by hackersin the form of a ransom. The FBI has not released too many details on how it was possible to recover the loot, which, so far, seemed to have ended up in the darkness of the dark world, a no-man's land forbidden to the authorities.
What is known is that it was possible to trace, in a short time, the path taken by bitcoins through at least 23 suspicious electronic accounts before landing at the pirate-controlled loot of Darkside. “The same qualities that make Bitcoin so attractive to the underworld – the report reads – that is the possibility of transferring money without bank authorization, can be exploited properly by the representatives of the law”. In short, the path of Bitcoin is traceable, as we already knew, except that it was assumed that electronic "following" was destined to stop in front of the insurmountable wall of the blockchain.
In reverse, the FBI proved capable of breaking the barrier by blowing up walls deemed inviolable. Indeed, the search proved to be particularly easy: instead of sifting through tons of bank documents, with a heavy expenditure of men for months, it was sufficient to identify the codes to arrive at the solution of the enigma. As? For now it is top secret. What is known is that the operation is not an isolated success. In January, the FBI interrupted the activity of Netwalker, a blackmailer specialized in boycotting local administrations (half a million dollars recovered). Then it was the turn of the North Korean hackers (280 suspected wallets violated) and the Chinese ones (28 million identified in 230 wallets). And so on. Without excessive advertising. The fairy tale of the bitcoin that escapes justice and the tax authorities is also convenient for the 007s.
