The difference between 15 billion and 2.24 trillion is pretty much 2.24 trillion. I'm not sure there is a definition of the word where this is true .

I expect it would be pretty significant probably when compared to the actual fiat inflows/outflows to and from the cryptocurrency market.

Trying to liquidate $15bn to USD reasonably quickly would very likely cause a massive drop the price, which would correspondingly drop the market cap by potentially many times that $15bn.

In $5 wrench we trust. - Bitcoin

That doesn't appear to be how they seized the funds though, the criminal hasn't been caught so they must have hacked his devices to gain access to the private keys. No $5 wrench involved.

It’s probably a computer hack of some sort that led to accessing the wallet password etc.

I bet somebody wrote down their password, too scared of what would happen to them if they were to forget it.

I assume by wrote down you mean they saved it in a file somewhere. Amusing to think it would have been safe from that kind of hack if they'd written it on a post it node and stuck it on the bottom of their keyboard.

Nah, you know he had his wallet backed up to his My Documents folder as json…

not a sticky note on the desktop?

Which just goes to show that custody is a hard and almost always under-estimated problem.

It is, but it's not so hard that you can't figure it out to keep your 15 billion safe.

Well these guys apparently didn't manage that.

There is no honor among pig butchers.

There is no honor among people in general.

Sorry you've not met enough honorable people to have that level of cynicism.

It's much harder to keep things safe under rule of villains than rule of law.