From the Block to the Blockchain

Inside the World of America’s Most Dangerous Gangs

They call themselves the ProtoCals—a syndicate of elite cybercriminals with roots in the same streets where CMG and the Rollin 60s once carved turf with heat and asphalt. Their rivals? CL0P and LockBit—not street gangs, but decentralized, cloud-native collectives of cyberextortionists offering ransomware-as-a-service like drive-thru felonies.

This isn’t a Revenge of the Nerds reboot full of co-ed weirdos in ironic hoodies. The trope of twitchy hackers mumbling in basements doesn’t apply. ProtoCals blend in—indistinguishable from the most digitally inept among us.