Billy Markus, known on Twitter as "Shibetoshi Nakamoto," who created the original meme coin DOGE together with Jackson Palmer in 2013, announced on Twitter that during his ongoing trip to Japan, he has had a substantial amount of money stolen from him.
Dogecoin founder loses fiat money to pickpockets
Markus lost $500 to thieves, which is the equivalent of roughly 8,600 Dogecoin in the crypto that he created. According to the tweet posted by Markus, which is part of his regular reports from his holiday in Japan, he "got too mesmerized by a fancy public toilet." He accidentally left his wallet there.
When he realized that fact and rushed back, the wallet was there but the money in it had been stolen. "I got too mesmerized by a fancy public toilet and accidentally left my fanny pack in there. I realized it like a few minutes later and when i returned the fanny pack was there but all the money was gone."
Markus stated that he believes it was a tourist, not a Japanese person – he says he is half-Japanese himself, so he did not expect any local people to want to steal his money. Judging by Markus's tweets, he is quite pleased with his holiday in Japan and believes that a Japanese guy stealing his money would have been "too shameful."
Elon Musk sides with Billy Markus on crypto taxes
As reported by U.Today, earlier this week, Markus showed his indignation on Twitter at the news that the SEC chairman Gary Gensler, when arguing about the case of the SEC against Coinbase, stated he believes crypto does not have any "innate or inherent value."
Markus stated that if this is the case, the U.S. government should immediately return to him all the money they collected from him in taxes for selling his crypto.
Elon Musk weighed in in the comment thread, siding with Markus and stating," It's real if you have to pay taxes, but otherwise not real?"
Curiously, the DOGE creator responded that the realness of crypto is "transitory." This was most likely his skepticism. Markus has shared his take on crypto investments and crypto as assets on Twitter many times, basically saying that nobody can really explain why crypto prices go up or down. Also several times, he likened investing in crypto to mental illness. As for his favorite cryptocurrencies, he recently admitted that he likes Bitcoin and Ethereum but does not trust anything else (except DOGE, perhaps); he especially dislikes all ERC-20 tokens.
Vladislav Sopov
Gamza Khanzadaev
