According to reports, the FBI is said to have served a subpoena to gather individual data from attendees at a Bitcoin core developers conference held in 2022.

The discovery of this action was made known through Mike Schmidt, a co-founder of Bitcoin non-profit Brink. He revealed that the subpoena is connected to accusations by Luke Dashjr, a BTC developer and co-founder of Ocean mining pool, regarding the theft of over 200 Bitcoins in a hack.

Event Attendees Caught in Crossfire

Schmidt revealed that he received the FBI subpoena as part of the investigation into Dashjr’s claim. It specifically requested information about attendees of the October 2022 CoreDev Atlanta event, which took place just before TABConf 2022. Schmidt mentioned that he was advised by legal counsel to comply with it.

A subpoena was issued asking for the first and last names, GitHub usernames, and email addresses of those present, with the aim of investigating Dashjr’s claim. Schmidt followed this requirement, even though it contained a confidentiality agreement that expired shortly before the information could be made public.

The Brink’s co-founder accused Dashjr of neglecting to protect his own Bitcoins. Unintentionally, Dashjr’s announcement about stolen Bitcoins drew FBI attention towards the conference attendees, leading to the exposure of their personal information to law enforcement.

“The guy who wants to tell you how to use Bitcoin couldn’t even secure his own Bitcoin and, as a consequence, got everyone at a conference he attended doxxed by the FBI. Good job, Luke!”

Dashjr’s $3.3M Bitcoin Theft

On December 31, 2022, Dashjr disclosed that his digital funds were taken after someone managed to breach the encryption of his Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) keys. Created by Phil Zimmermann in 1991, PGP functions as a tool for securely encrypting and decrypting data, providing confidentiality and authentication for communications like emails and digital signatures, along with file encryption.

In that period, approximately $3.3 million could be represented by the stolen Bitcoin. But following market recuperation and significant price surges due to Bitcoin ETF approvals and the upcoming halving, the hidden hoard was estimated to be valued over $14 million.

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2024-04-13 07:49