A collection of on-chain Bitcoin messages claiming authorized management over legacy wallets has sparked a whole lot of debate within the crypto house. Some customers are saying that early-era wallets — possibly even ones linked to Satoshi Nakamoto — might have been hacked.
The messages, despatched out on July 1 at 12:30 a.m. through OP_RETURN knowledge, included the phrase “now we have taken possession of this pockets and its contents.” The transactions concerned P2PKH addresses, an previous format that was generally utilized in Bitcoin’s early days.
Ripple CTO David Schwartz shared a balanced perspective on the scenario in response to the rising hypothesis. He says the incident most likely falls into certainly one of two classes: both somebody is laundering funds underneath the guise of a pockets restoration, or they’re exploiting weaknesses in previous personal key technology to assert deserted wallets.
I feel there are two possible explanations:
1) Somebody is laundering their very own cash by claiming they discovered the keys one way or the other.
2) Somebody has discovered wallets with weak keys or nonces and is attempting to lawfully declare them as deserted.
Arduous to say which.
— David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) July 11, 2025
Whereas the messages concerning the transactions have garnered a whole lot of consideration, there isn’t a proof that Bitcoin’s major cryptographic system has been hacked. The concept this might contain Satoshi’s personal wallets — estimated to carry practically a million BTC — continues to be up within the air.
However the occasion has introduced up some previous worries about how effectively wallets shield your crypto. If any keys from that period have been poorly generated or reused, they could possibly be prone to being found and claimed by third events. That could be a severe scenario, however it’s not a brand new downside, and it doesn’t present that Bitcoin’s present design is flawed.
To this point, there has not been any motion from the addresses linked to Satoshi, and no main wallets have been breached. The messages are unusual, however the extra dramatic tales don’t have any tech proof to again them up.
