If you haven't been paying attention to the latest gossips on the network and haven't heard about North Korea's leader - Kim Jong-Un, boy, have I got a news for you. Granted, it still is just a rumor at this point and not really anything that's been officially confirmed. Kim has last been seen in public on April 11th, when he led a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party committee of policymakers. Now according to the Daily NK, Kim Jong-Un had an open heart surgery on the 12th of April at a hospital near Mount Myohyang. Now, according to a Japanese magazine, that cited an unnamed Chinese medical source, Kim Jong-Un has been in a vegetative state ever since after the operation took a wrong turn. This would also explain why Kim hadn't shown up to Kim Il Sung's birthday on April the 15th, which is a great national celebration in Korea, since the grandfather of Kim Jong-Un was the first of the ruling family that has been at power for over 72 years. Of course, there is the other one, much saner explanation that Kim Jong-Un did, as many people do after an open heart surgery have and most likely is right now in a recovery period, so it would be just plain ridiculous to be expecting him to be attending a ceremony 3 days after his surgery, but let's not worry ourselves with rationality and reason just yet.
The reason this news is important for Bitcoin and its price
It is estimated that North Korea had a turnaround of more than 2.5 billion USD in cryptocurrency - with the majority of it being in Bitcoin, processed through its economy for the last year. It is unclear how much, if any of this still remains under the ownership of the North Korean economic ecosystem, but regardless of it, this is a significant amount of funds. Seeing as how North Korea definitely has an albeit just a small part of Bitcoin's 117 billion ecosystem flow through it, it's safe to say that this news could cause at least minor spikes (probably downwards) of the price in the following week or so if it turns out to be true.
The death of Kim Jong-Un's father, Kim Jong-Il had a dread effect on the price of Bitcoin in 2011
This was a while ago, when bitcoin hadn't really taken off - so to speak, but the death of Kim Jong-Il back in 2011 had an impact on the price of Bitcoin, pushing it down. This wasn't because Bitcoin was widely used in North Korea or that it's dictator was an endorser of Bitcoin - he wasn't, but instead because of the international uncertainty this event created on the future stability of the world. As we have all heard (don't say you haven't, that's just embarrassing) North Korea has an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal, which doesn't really inspires trust when you don't even know who is leading the country at the moment, and to what ends.
But things turned out good back then, in fact, North Korea has seen much improvement in their economy and lifestyle of their citizens. However, if the news for Kim Jong-Un's death turns out to be real, the uncertainty is something that cannot be avoided, no matter if the power goes to the hands of his sister, some general or a third party unknown to us at this point. This will stir international relations and the uncertainty will take effect, among other things, manifesting in Bitcoin's price, which can hinder upward trends or straight up put a downward spike short term, even for just a day or two.
