A mysterious large-scale transaction on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain has stirred investor anxiety, reigniting the 'Satoshi hacking theory'. However, David Schwartz, Ripple's technical director, actively refuted the possibility of hacking the wallet presumed to belong to Satoshi.
The controversy began on July 1st with OP_RETURN messages sent from old Bitcoin P2PKH addresses. These messages claimed ownership of the assets in those addresses, leading to speculation about whether Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet had been breached. Given the security vulnerabilities of these early Bitcoin wallet address formats, some raised concerns about threats to Bitcoin's core cryptographic technology.
A few days later, 80,000 BTC (approximately 11.12 trillion won) were transferred from these wallets to SegWit addresses, causing another market stir. These wallets were known to have been inactive for at least 14 years, making the sudden large-scale movement particularly noteworthy. However, according to analysis from on-chain platform Arkham and Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet, this appears to be a simple wallet security enhancement, with no detected transfers to exchanges.
Schwartz commented that there could be two reasons for moving funds from old wallets: first, someone wanting to legitimately launder their funds, and second, a third party legally treating the wallet with vulnerable private key structure as 'abandoned assets'. He emphasized that there is no evidence that Bitcoin's core cryptographic system has been compromised.
Most analysts do not view these transactions as actual selling signals. The prevailing perspective is that an old miner simply recovered their keys or made a long-awaited move. While Schwartz drew a line against speculative claims of Satoshi's wallet being hacked, he acknowledged that the old system remains exposed to security issues.
Meanwhile, a 2023 court document reexamined suggests Schwartz mentioned that "Satoshi likely held a significant amount of XRP", drawing additional interest.
Ultimately, no traces of Satoshi's wallet being actually compromised have been found, and these transactions remain an unidentified mystery. However, the event is being interpreted as a warning signal due to the potential for larger issues stemming from outdated wallet structures and security systems.
Real-time news...Go to Token Post Telegram
<Copyright ⓒ TokenPost, unauthorized reproduction and redistribution prohibited>
