Fran Berlin - Instituto Blockchain

😮 Back in 2013, a 26-year-old engineer lost his life in a motorcycle accident in Vancouver. 🇨🇦

He had 438 $BTC Bitcoin stashed in an Electrum wallet.

His wife knew they existed. She knew the software name. She knew they were worth something.

But she didn’t know the password.
There was no seed phrase written down anywhere.
No instructions to follow.

They spent 4 years trying to recover them with digital forensic experts.

They failed.

Today, those 438 BTC are worth over 40 million dollars. $USDT

They remain there. Intact. Inaccessible. Forever.

This isn’t an isolated case. It’s estimated that between 17% and 23% of all circulating Bitcoin is permanently locked — wallets of people who passed away without leaving instructions.

It wasn’t lost to a hacker.
It wasn’t lost to the market.
It was lost to silence.

Do you have a legacy access plan for your digital assets?

If it takes longer than 3 seconds to answer… you know what you need to do today.

#bitcoin #HerenciaDigital #SeguridadCrypto #FranBerlin #InstitutoBlockchain

Fran Berlín | Blockchain Institute

The man who swore he would never sell Bitcoin…
just sold some Bitcoin. $BTC

For years, Michael Saylor kept saying the same thing in every interview, every conference, every tweet:

"We will never sell a single satoshi."

It was his mantra. His identity. The reason thousands of investors followed MicroStrategy like it was a religion.

Then May 2026 rolled around.

Between May 26 and May 31, MicroStrategy sold 32 BTC. Quietly. Without any announcement. The market found out on June 1, when the company disclosed it in a regulatory report.

32 BTC at an average of $77,135 each. Just over $2.5 million. $USDT

For a company that hoards over 500,000 Bitcoin on its balance sheet, it's a drop in the ocean.

But the market didn’t react to the numbers. It reacted to the symbol.

MSTR dropped 4.72% that day. Bitcoin also lost ground. Not because the sale mattered mathematically, but because it broke something many believed was untouchable: the narrative.

This is the man who mortgaged personal properties to buy BTC. The one who said Bitcoin was “the only asset worth holding.” The number one evangelist of the largest institutional bet in crypto history.

And here’s the question no one has answered yet:

Was it an emergency sale? A quiet liquidity test? Or the start of something Saylor still doesn’t want to admit publicly?

👇 What do you really think is going on?

#bitcoin #MicroStrategy #BTC #FranBerlin #InstitutoBlockchain

🔄 Last week, Strategy shorted 32 Bitcoin and the market tanked.

This week, Strategy scooped up 1,550 $BTC

$101 million. At $65,332 $USDT per coin. The first buy since that sale that rocked the market.

And there's a detail that nobody is highlighting: this purchase was made $10,000 below Strategy's historical average price. For the first time since he started his accumulation strategy, Saylor reduced his average cost per Bitcoin.

It wasn't an accident. It was a calculated move.

Last week's narrative was: "Saylor sold, the model broke." This week's narrative is: "Saylor bought at the floor, the model continues."

Both narratives come from the same company. With a week in between.

This is what markets do all the time: they build stories around data. And then the data changes and the story changes.

BTC today: $63,718. Regaining ground.

The question isn't what Saylor did. The question is: how many of your decisions last week were based on a narrative that has already changed?

#bitcoin #strategy #BTC #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

🔍 There’s a question I’ve been getting this week more than any other:

"Fran, is this the end of the cycle?"

My honest answer: I don’t know. Nobody knows.

But I can tell the difference between data and fear. And this week there’s been a lot of both mixed together.

The real data from this week:

$BTC dropped to $59,100 on Thursday. Today it's trading at $62,681, trying to bounce back. $ETH has a -67% drawdown from its ATH of August 2025. Companies that copied the BTC treasury model lost $62 billion in combined value. The Fed won’t lower rates in 2026 according to 68.8% of the market. The SpaceX IPO on June 12 — the largest in history — is grabbing attention and possibly capital.

The real fear this week:

Polymarket gives a 55% chance that Bitcoin drops below $55,000 before the year’s end. Technical analysts are talking about $40,000-$45,000 if the $59,000 support $USDT breaks definitively.

And yet.

Bitcoin opened 2026 at $92,500. Touched $126,073 on October 6, 2025. It’s built to survive exactly this: narratives collapsing, institutions rotating, retail panicking.

What changes in each cycle isn’t Bitcoin. It’s us.

The investor who understands the cycle isn’t looking for the exact bottom. They’re looking for context. And the context today says: extreme fear, adverse macro data, and a week with the largest IPO in history competing for the same capital.

That’s not the end. It’s the entry price for those who study while others panic.

Are you studying or panicking?

#bitcoin #season #crypto #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

💀 Since 2020, Michael Saylor has been repeating the same thing in every interview, every tweet, every conference:

"We never sell Bitcoin."

The market believed him. And he built an entire narrative on that promise.

Companies around the world copied the model. Nakamoto. Metaplanet. Twenty One Capital. Dozens of firms turned their treasuries into positions of $BTC betting that if Saylor never sold, the floor would always hold.

On June 5, 2026, Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin.

Just 32. At an average price of $77,135. $USDT To pay dividends on preferred shares.

The 0.0038% of their total holdings.

And the market tanked.

An analyst named BitQuant had predicted exactly this moment back in January 2026: "Saylor buys between 2,000 and 20,000 Bitcoin a week and nobody cares. One day he’ll sell just 200 and the entire market will crash on that news."

He was wrong on the amount. He got everything else right.

What happened next was darker: the combined value of all the companies that copied Strategy's model dropped from $134 billion to $72 billion. Nakamoto did a reverse split of 1 for 40. Metaplanet is down -80% in twelve months. SoftBank liquidated its 26% in Twenty One Capital.

The model that seemed indestructible revealed its fragility in a single transaction.

The narrative is not the asset. The price is.

How many investment decisions did you make based on what Saylor said, not on what the data showed?

#bitcoin #strategy #MichaelSaylor #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

📉 In August 2025, $ETH Ethereum hit $4,951. $USDT Its all-time high.

Today it's trading at ~$1,630.

That's a 67% drop from the peak. In less than ten months.

But there’s one detail hardly anyone mentions: during that same period, Ethereum whales bought over $2 billion in ETH. Silently. No announcements. No tweets.

Who’s selling while the whales are buying? The fearful retail traders.

The ETH market in June 2026 shows a strange fracture: all the technical data is bearish — price below all moving averages, decreasing highs and lows, ETF outflows of $401 million just in May — but the fundamentals of the protocol haven’t budged.

The total value locked in DeFi remains stable. Gas fees are consistent. Ethereum is still the leading smart contract platform in the world.

And a catalyst is approaching that few are watching: the Glamsterdam upgrade, scheduled for Q3 2026. If developers confirm a date, the market could pivot before it arrives.

There’s a technical level that analysts point to as the line in the sand: $1,964. If ETH closes below that price sustainably, the next structural support is at $1,545.

If it holds… the story could be very different.

Whales know something the price hasn’t reflected yet. Or they could be wrong.

Which of the two scenarios are you betting on?

#Ethereum #ETH #defi #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

🚀 On June 12, 2026, SpaceX is making its debut on the Nasdaq.

Ticker: SPCX. Valuation: $1.75 trillion. Estimated raise: $75 billion. The largest IPO in history.

Analysts suggest that this date partly explains why Bitcoin $BTC took a dip to $59,100 $USDT last week.

Today kicks off the official IPO roadshow. The countdown is real.

The logic is simple and brutal: when the most awaited IPO of the decade arrives, retail investors need liquidity. Where do they get it? From where they have profits… or where they can exit quickly.

Crypto is liquid 24/7.

What makes this IPO unique is that up to 30% of the shares are reserved for retail investors. Not for funds. For people like you and me, through Robinhood, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab.

SpaceX, merged with Musk's xAI, is not just a space company. It's AI infrastructure. Starlink. Reusable rockets. And according to the S-1 filed with the SEC, Anthropic is paying $1.25 billion a month for access to its data centers.

The problem? The company recorded a net loss of $4.27 billion just in Q1 2026.

The hard data is contradictory. The hype is real.

And while the world decides whether to buy SPCX, Bitcoin is trading today at $62,681 — trying to regain ground after its worst week of the year.

Coincidence… or disguised capital rotation?

#SpaceX #bitcoin #IPO #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

🔍 Let me be straight with you.

This week was brutal for the market. Bitcoin at $59,100. $ETH below $1,600. $ADA hitting 5-year lows. $SOL touching the floor of 2026. Over 350,000 traders liquidated in 24 hours.

The media calls it a crisis. Some call it the end of the cycle.

I call it: the price of education that many didn't want to buy during the good months.

There's a pattern that repeats in every crypto market correction, and it's almost poetic in its precision:

— When BTC brushed against $84,000 in May, everyone wanted to buy.
— When it hit $59,000 this week, everyone wanted to short.

The Fear & Greed Index dropped to 11. Extreme fear.

And here’s the uncomfortable fact: historically, readings below 15 on that index have marked some of the best long-term entry points of the cycle.

I’m not saying the bottom is already in. Nobody knows.

What I do know, from my perspective as a lawyer specialized in digital assets, is this:

People who study the market in times of fear are the ones making smart decisions when euphoria returns.

This week was expensive for those trading with leverage.

It was free for those watching and learning.

Which of the two groups are you in?

#bitcoin #crypto #EducaciónFinanciera #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

🏦 At some point in Q1 2026, Goldman Sachs made a quiet move.

They completely liquidated their position in the Solana ETF. $108 million $USDT zero.

There was no announcement. No drama. It just showed up in the regulatory filings weeks later.

And the market only processed it in June.

SOL was already trading weak when the news circulated. But what came next sunk it further: today, June 7, 2026, over 624,000 tokens $SOL are being unlocked and hitting the market. New supply. Scarce buyers.

The outcome was predictable.

Solana, which almost touched $295 in January 2025, fell below $62 in June 2026. A drop of over 78% from all-time highs.

Does that mean Solana is dead?

No. The Solana Summit is scheduled for June 16. The Alpenglow upgrade is coming in Q3. The network is still processing transactions.

But one thing this episode confirms: when the big players exit, they don’t give a heads-up. And when the regulatory filings expose them, it's too late to react.

Asymmetric information didn’t disappear with the ETFs. It just changed form.

Do you think SOL can recover to $100 before the end of 2026?

#solana #sol #etf #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

📱 On June 3, 2026, Charles Hoskinson dropped two words on X:

“I’m taking a break. TTYL”

And with that, $ADA tanked to $0.16 $USDT for the first time in over five years.

But the real story didn’t start there.

Weeks prior, the Cardano community voted against using funds from their own treasury to finance the Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore. The project's flagship event: canceled by its own users.

Then TapTools — one of the most used analysis platforms in the ecosystem — announced its shutdown after four years building on Cardano.

It was then that Hoskinson recorded a video warning that “a wave of failures” was coming within the ecosystem. And the next day… he vanished from social media.

The market interpreted that silence worse than any statement.

As a lawyer specialized in digital assets, what catches my attention the most isn’t the price: it’s what this case reveals about the real limits of decentralized governance.

Cardano has been described for years as “the technically most solid blockchain.” Its fundamentals didn’t change in a week.

But the perception did.

Is the governance model the real problem for Cardano, or is it just the market punishing uncertainty?

#Cardano #ADA #blockchain #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

⚡ On Friday, June 5, 2026, a trader in Mexico City 🇲🇽 opened their app and saw something they hadn't expected to see in a long time: $BTC at $59,100.

This morning, as I write this, it's trading at $61,800. The bounce is real. But the story of how we got here is what matters.

It wasn't a sudden crash. It was the result of 13 consecutive days of something that had never happened before.

Bitcoin ETFs — those very vehicles that Wall Street celebrated as 'the legitimization of crypto' — had been bleeding capital for two weeks straight. Day after day. Non-stop.

$4,400,000,000 $USDT left Bitcoin spot ETFs in 13 consecutive sessions. The longest streak since these products launched in 2024.

BlackRock. Fidelity. Grayscale. All recorded massive redemptions.

And then something unexpected happened: Strategy — Michael Saylor's company, which has been buying Bitcoin compulsively since 2020 — sold BTC. Just 32 coins, sure. But they sold.

The market interpreted it as a signal.

Liquidations in futures reached $1.8 billion in a single day. Over 351,000 traders were wiped out in 24 hours.

What's really going on? Many analysts point to a rotation: institutional capital is flowing into AI stocks, where returns are visible and numbers are concrete.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, still relies on narrative, liquidity, and trust.

And in moments like this, the question that separates those who capitalize from those who panic is simple:

Do you see a crisis… or an opportunity?

#bitcoin #BTC #InstitutoBlockchain #crypto #FranBerlin

🌐 In 12 days, the Fed is meeting for the first time under new leadership.

And what they decide could steer the crypto market for the remainder of 2026.

On June 17 and 18, Kevin Warsh will chair his first meeting as the new Federal Reserve president. He replaced Jerome Powell just weeks ago and has inherited one of the most challenging boards in decades.

Let me break down why this matters to you even if you don't have a single dollar in the American stock market.

The Fed controls the interest rates in the United States, and these rates dictate how much money flows globally. When rates rise, capital hides in bonds and dollars. Crypto takes a hit. When rates drop, capital seeks riskier assets. Crypto rallies.

So, what’s expected on June 18?

Futures markets assign a 90% probability that rates will remain unchanged. Not just in June, but also in September. Some analysts don’t anticipate a cut until late 2027.

Why the delay?

Two words: Strait of Hormuz.

The conflict in Iran has shot oil prices up. High oil prices mean inflation, and the Fed can't lower rates with inflation without controlling it—that would be like throwing gasoline on the fire.

Warsh arrives with a reputation for “hard money” and strict monetary discipline, a reduced balance sheet, and no political concessions. Trump chose him expecting quick rate cuts, but the Fed members Warsh inherited not only resist cuts; some are even open to raising rates.

No one is saying it out loud.

For crypto, this has a direct reading: high rates for longer mean less global liquidity, more attractiveness of bonds over risk assets, and reduced institutional capital inflow to Bitcoin.

This isn't the scenario the market wants. But it's the scenario the data shows.

As a lawyer specializing in digital assets, I’ll tell you what I always say: trading without reading the macro context isn’t bravery. It’s trading with your eyes closed.

👇 Do you have June 18 marked on your calendar?

#Fed #bitcoin #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #Warsh

🔍 Every time you connect your wallet to a crypto app, you’re signing a contract.

Most folks don’t read it. Some end up losing everything because of that.

In 2025, vulnerabilities in smart contracts caused over $1.42 billion in losses. It wasn’t movie hackers. It was people who signed without knowing what they were signing.

Today, I’m sharing the protocol I use before approving any contract.

Alert Signal #1: SetApprovalForAll

The most commonly used in crypto scams. When you sign it, you give an external contract permission to move ALL the tokens from your wallet.

When is it legit? Only when listing an NFT on a marketplace or interacting with a well-known DEX. Outside of those situations, red flag.

Alert Signal #2: Unverified Contract on Etherscan

Copy the contract address and search it on Etherscan. If it doesn’t have verified source code — just bytecode — stop. A serious project always verifies publicly.

Alert Signal #3: Contract Deployed Less Than 48 Hours Ago

Etherscan shows when it was created. A contract that's only hours old pushing you to sign is almost always a trap.

Alert Signal #4: Permissions That Don’t Expire

That permission can be unlimited and permanent. Revoke.cash lets you see all contracts with access to your wallet and revoke them with one click.

Alert Signal #5: Reentrancy — Contracts Calling Themselves

The malicious contract executes an operation, and before your wallet registers the change, it executes another — emptying your balance in seconds. If you don’t understand the chained logic, don’t sign.

As a digital assets lawyer, I tell you: the bytecode of any contract on the blockchain is public. The tools to analyze it are free.

Ignoring this isn’t bad luck. It’s a choice.

👇 Have you checked which contracts currently have access to your wallet?

#SmartContracts #defi #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #Ethereum

💎 There's a token that shot up +59% in 90 days while the overall market was tanking.

It's not hype. It's not a meme. It has a real product behind it.

It's called $ONDO . And what it does is something that banks have been trying to avoid for decades.

It tokenizes U.S. Treasury bonds 🇺🇸

Simple translation: it takes one of the safest financial assets in the world — the U.S. government debt — and turns it into a token that anyone in any country can buy from their wallet, without a bank, without intermediaries, and without institutional minimum investment.

Until recently, that was impossible for someone in Mexico, Colombia, or Spain without an account at an American bank and thousands of dollars as a minimum.

$ONDO broke that barrier.

And I'm not just saying that. The names behind the product say it: BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and WisdomTree. Four of the largest asset managers in the world already have tokenized products running on ONDO infrastructure. The TVL exceeds $680 million in real Treasury bonds.

This week saw some turbulence. It dropped to $0.35 intraday, swept some stops, and bounced back with volume 74% higher than its average. That pattern has a name: leverage washout. The weak hands got shaken out. The institutions bought the dip.

But there's a risk I won’t gloss over because my job is to give you the full picture:

$ONDO has a token unlock schedule that releases new coins until 2029. Each unlock generates selling pressure. It has happened before and can happen again.

The fundamentals are solid. The risk is real too.

That's exactly what distinguishes an honest analysis from a pump disguised as educational content.

As a lawyer specialized in digital assets, I always tell you: analyze, diversify, and never put in more than you can afford to lose.

👇 Did you know that BlackRock already has products running on blockchain? Or do you still think institutions are far from crypto?

#ONDO #RWA #blackRock #FranBerlin
#crypto

🚨 Last week they woke up.

They hadn't moved in 13 years.

Two Bitcoin wallets created in 2011 and 2012 — when $BTC was worth less than $15 — suddenly moved 2,000 BTC. Over $150 million dollars. $USDT

No warning. No explanation. No known identity.

They just… woke up.

And they weren't the only ones. In May 2026, several silent wallets for over 12 years moved millions in just a few days. A wave nobody saw coming.

The most disturbing part: they woke up just when Bitcoin was trading 50% below its all-time high. When the market is weak. When a massive sell-off hurts the most.

Coincidence? The market doesn’t think so.

In December 2025, something similar happened: hundreds of wallets linked to Silk Road — the most famous dark web marketplace — reactivated after more than a decade of silence. Illegal operation money from 2012 moving in 2025. No official explanation.

Every time this happens, the market trembles. And there's a very concrete reason.

More than 1,000 wallets have been inactive for ten or more years without sending a single coin. A dormant supply large enough to shake prices if it were to hit the market suddenly.

The owner might have died. They could have lost the password. They might just be waiting.

Nobody knows.

And that uncertainty has a technical name: latent supply shock. An offer bomb that can activate at any moment without any technical analysis predicting it.

A single transfer of 12,000 BTC in November 2025 pushed the price down by 2% within hours.

One wallet. Two percent. In hours.

Nobody controls Bitcoin. That’s its greatest virtue.

And also its greatest mystery.

👇 Do you think those wallets belong to living people… or is Bitcoin lost forever?

#bitcoin #CryptoHistory #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #crypto

🌐 China is building an alternative to the dollar. 🇨🇳

And it’s doing it with blockchain.

It’s called e-CNY — the digital yuan. This isn’t a future project. It’s a live operation: 230 million users, 19 million businesses, and over 3.4 billion transactions processed.

In January 2026, it took a leap that almost no one reported: it stopped being 'digital cash' to become 'digital deposit currency' — now it pays interest. It operates like a global state bank account.

Here’s what very few are connecting.

When Trump imposed tariffs of 46% on Vietnam, 36% on Thailand, and 49% on Cambodia — those countries didn’t just sit back. China offered them an exit: pay without going through SWIFT, without touching dollars, without American intermediaries.

Almost 38% of global trade could shift to that lane.

And what does $BTC Bitcoin have to do with this?

Everything.

The DXY index fell 9.6% in 2025, its worst year since 2017. Kenneth Rogoff from Harvard bluntly said: the euro, the yuan, and cryptocurrencies will be the big beneficiaries as the dollar loses global dominance.

And this week, the yuan has appreciated 5.5% over 12 months. It’s no coincidence — it’s the market repositioning.

When the dollar structurally weakens, capital seeks alternatives. Gold. Bitcoin. Assets outside the system.

But there’s an irony that no one mentions.

The digital yuan is exactly the opposite of Bitcoin. Centralized, traceable, controlled by the State. Every transaction visible to Beijing.

Bitcoin was born precisely so that no government would have that power.

The trade war is redefining what money means. 💴 And on that board, crypto is not a spectator — it’s one of the pieces.

The question is, which side of the board do you want to be on?

👇 Do you think the digital yuan is a real threat to the dollar, or is it more noise than reality?

#YuanDigital #bitcoin #dolar #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin

🔍 Are you losing money on every trade and probably don't know why?

It's not the exchange. It's not a hidden fee. It's not bad luck.

It's called slippage. And it works silently.

When you see the price of a token and hit "buy", that price no longer exists.

The market moved in the microsecond it took you to confirm. What you paid was different from what you expected. That difference is called slippage.

In high liquidity tokens like $BTC o or $ETH , it's minimal. Almost imperceptible.

But in low cap tokens, on DEX with low volume, or during high volatility, slippage can eat up between 1% and 15% of your trade without any alerts to warn you.

Imagine buying $1,000 worth of a token and receiving the equivalent of $870. Nobody robbed you. Nobody failed. The market moved while your transaction was being processed.

There are two types you should know:

Price slippage — the difference between the expected price and the executed price.

Tolerance slippage — the maximum percentage you authorize before the transaction is automatically canceled.

That second type is your defense. And also your weak point.

MEV bots scan the mempool — the public waiting room of transactions — specifically looking for this. They execute a sandwich attack: they buy before you to jack up the price, let your transaction execute inflated, and sell immediately. You pay more. They pocket the difference.

And the detail that hurts the most: they specifically target traders with slippage above 5%.

Knowing this changes how you trade:

— Keep your tolerance between 0.5% and 1% on liquid pairs
— In volatile tokens, don't go above 3% unless absolutely necessary
— Use Flashbots Protect or private RPCs to stay off the mempool radar

It's not invulnerability. It's reducing the target.

👇 Did you know your transactions on DEX are public before they confirm?

#Slippage #MEV #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #Crypto

💎 There's a token that has direct access to 950 million users.

And most of the Latin crypto community isn't even looking at it yet.

It's called $TON . And its story is weirder than it seems.

It was born inside Telegram. It got shut down by the SEC in 2020 before it even launched. It was left abandoned. A group of independent developers rescued it from oblivion and relaunched it.

For years, it was ignored.

Until Telegram decided to integrate it as their native financial layer. Payments within the app. Wallets. Mini Apps. Everything running on TON.

Think of it this way: every time someone uses a mini app on Telegram, every time someone pays with $USDT within the chat, every time a developer launches a game on Telegram… they're using TON infrastructure.

And in May 2026, something happened that changed everything.

Pavel Durov announced the "Make TON Great Again" plan: Telegram takes direct control as the largest validator on the network. It's no longer a blockchain tied to Telegram. Now it is Telegram.

The technical numbers back up the narrative: transactions in under a second, fees of a fraction of a cent, and a bridge with Bitcoin in development.

Is the market reflecting this yet? Not fully.

Some analysts point out that the current price doesn't reflect what it means to have almost a billion users as a gateway to a blockchain.

In 2020, nobody wanted TON. By 2026, Telegram has nearly a billion active users. The narrative hasn’t changed — the world has caught up to the narrative.

As a lawyer specializing in digital assets, let me tell you something that not many say openly: no fundamental analysis guarantees returns. But ignoring the fundamentals guarantees blind decisions.

👇 Do you already have $TON on your radar, or is this the first time you're seriously analyzing it?

#TON #Crypto #InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #Crypto

🚨 The FBI has created its own crypto token.

They listed it on Uniswap. Built a website, a whitepaper, real tokenomics.

And then they waited.

It was 2024. The operation was called “Operation Token Mirrors” and the token was named #NexFundAI .

This wasn't a warning. It wasn't an educational campaign. It was real-time evidence. The manipulation signatures came in hot, unaware that every move was being recorded. One of them documented in their internal files the difference between “wash trading” and “real market volume.” They incriminated themselves. 👁️

Outcome: 18 individuals and entities arrested, over $25 million confiscated, and bots disabled across 60 different tokens. ⚖️

The first time in history that a financial services firm faced criminal charges for market manipulation in crypto.

But the case didn’t end there.

On the same day as the DOJ announcement, someone cloned the token's contract. In 24 hours, they replicated the scheme and made $127,000 before vanishing. 👻

And there's a detail that almost no one reported: the FBI had to open a restitution portal because when they pulled liquidity, regular investors lost money. The trap also caught the innocent. 🎯

Does this say anything about the state of crypto regulation… or how deep the manipulation runs in this market?

👇 Do you think the FBI should conduct more operations like this, or is it playing with fire?

#InstitutoBlockchain #FranBerlin #bitcoin #Crypto

💥 850,000 BTC DISAPPEARED

Twelve years later, much of it is still missing. And nobody knows who has the keys. 👀

In 2014, a man cried in front of the cameras. 📷

He said he had lost 850,000 Bitcoin. $BTC

The world 🌏 believed him.

No one knew that the heist had been happening for three years without him noticing.

Mark Karpelès was a 28-year-old French programmer living in Tokyo. 🇯🇵

Introverted. Brilliant with code. Terrible with people.

He had bought Mt. Gox in 2011 for six months of income — nearly nothing.

Three years later, that exchange processed 70% of all Bitcoin transactions on the planet.

He was the most powerful player in crypto without anyone having elected him.

On February 24, 2014, the Mt. Gox site went blank.

No warning. No explanation.

Hours later, an internal document leaked online.

What it said froze the blood of 24,000 users:

850,000 BTC had vanished.

750,000 belonged to real customers. People like you.

What no one told in the news:

The hackers didn’t break in in 2014.

Subsequent investigations revealed they had been stealing Bitcoin since 2011 — quietly, gradually, invisibly.

Three years looting the vault while the exchange remained open, operating, raking in fees.

Mark was arrested in 2015.

Acquitted of fraud. Convicted of falsifying records.

The 850,000 BTC: never fully recovered.

Only 200,000 surfaced — stored in an old wallet that no one remembered.

The rest remains somewhere in the blockchain.⛓️

Still. Unmoving. Waiting.

Today those Bitcoins are worth over 80 billion dollars.

And nobody knows if the thief has them.

If he lost them.

Or if he’s waiting for the exact moment to move them.

What would you do if you had access to a wallet with billions… and moving it meant the entire world would know instantly?

Fran Berlín | Blockchain Institute
#MtGox #bitcoin #CryptoHistory #FranBerlin #InstitutoBlockchain