SUBSCRIBE IN CRYPTO WE TRUST! THANKS FOR TIPS! Over the weekend, the Intercept reported that the Pentagon had carried out an exercise which imagined young would-be revolutionaries using Bitcoin (BTC) to further their ends and escape the clutches of the US government and military. Given the ongoing unrest throughout much of the United States in recent weeks, the revelation has drawn particular interest. Documents unearthed through a freedom of information request revealed a Pentagon war game named the 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program (JLASS). Along with ISIS fanatics and anti-capitalist extremists, the war game identified disenchanted members of Generation Z as potential domestic threats to the stability and security of the United States. Jaded by 9/11, the Great Recession, college debt and the fact that they could enjoy a lower standard of living than their parents, the document described the generation of people born between the mid-1990s and late-2000s as “the least likely to believe there is such a thing as the ‘American Dream’ and that the “system is rigged” against them.” In light of such disaffection a global revolt starts, nicknamed the Zbellion. After being recruited the rebels then use malware from the dark web to hack and then steal funds from corporations and financial institutions. The gains gleamed from “the establishment” are then routed into “laundering programs that ultimately convert national currencies into Bitcoin.” The US government’s suspicion of BTC as a threat to national security is not altogether unwarranted. Indeed, the world’s leading cryptocurrency was designed as a decentralised counter to the control of nation states over the money supply. Nor can it be denied that cryptocurrencies have been used to launder money and facilitate drug smuggling. Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security announced a $5m reward for information that would lead to the arrest of Joselit Ramírez.