Key Bitcoin developer calls on FBI to recover $3.6M in digital coin
One of the most prominent developers of Bitcoin blockchain stated that he had asked the FBI for assistance in recovering $3.6 Million worth of digital coins stolen from his storage wallets during New Year’s Eve.
Luke Dashjr, a Bitcoin Core developer, is responsible for running 97 percent the nodes that make up the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Core is a derivative of the software created by Satoshi Nakamoto, an anonymous Bitcoin inventor.
The original name of the software was Bitcoin Core, but it was later changed to Bitcoin core to differentiate it from the currency. Since 2011 , Dashjr has contributed to the Bitcoin Core. He has always supported the idea of decentralization on which the cryptocurrency was founded.
“What the hell, FBI?”
Dashjr reported that his entire Bitcoin holdings, which were worth approximately $3.6million, had been ‘basically gone’ on New Year’s Day. The hack was caused by the compromise of a PGP key (Pretty Good Privacy Key) that he used in order to make sure that his Bitcoin Core and a smaller application called Bitcoin Knots were not contaminated with malware. He claimed that all of his computers had been compromised and advised people to avoid downloading new versions.
He wrote, “So to be clear: Do not download BITCOIN KNOTS and trust it until this is sorted out.” If you have done so in the past few months, it is worth considering shutting down that system.
Dashjr did not respond to an interview request.
The developer also stated that he had tried to contact the FBI and the police, but didn’t receive a reply.
“What the hell @FBI @ic3. Why can’t ???’ reach me? He wrote. “I paid those taxes, and the police don’t care.” This is a fraud.
Dashjr stated that the compromised wallets were both hot, meaning they could be accessed over the Internet. However, he claimed were cold. This meant they were not hosted on an internet-connected device. Although he didn’t give much detail,
it seems that he was speculating that one or more of the computers he used had been infected and that hackers could access the funds on them. This is difficult to understand, though, as a wallet on an Internet-connected device can be hot.
This problem aside, it could be consistent with the November breach Dashjr. The developer claimed that hackers bypassed my software security measures and rebooted the server from an unknown storage device during the incident.
It was operating another system for about five minutes. Two or three remote shell backdoors were then created by the hackers.
There are still many details that don’t match the events Dashjr reported. It’s difficult to draw any conclusions without more information.
However, one thing is certain, as demonstrated by the call of one of the most prominent Bitcoin developers to law enforcement to retrieve his stolen digital currency: The notion that cryptocurrencies offer a decentralized platform that cuts off established authorities is just a pipe dream.