Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been left in disbelief following news of a partial breach of Satoshi Nakamoto’s genesis wallet. The wallet, currently holding about 1.1 million Bitcoin worth over $4 billion, has been the subject of mystery and debate for more than ten years.
However, Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson stated that the news is fake. In his X profile, Hoskinson insisted that the Bitcoin founder would have generated keys using his old wallet. He also pointed out to users that partial keyset doesn’t necessarily correspond to a specific wallet
The scam alert was triggered after blockchain analysts observed unusual movement from one of the wallet’s addresses, which was inactive for a prolonged period. On investigation, about 50 Bitcoins were found to be transferred to an unknown address, raising concerns over the phishing attacks. Notably, about eight out of the twelve mnemonics were decoded. The decoded words are kentucky, dollar, fifty, chicken, vivo, Friday, fried, and chat.
Following the news, the crypto community was put in a state of panic. While some speculated the return of Satoshi, others argued on the advanced hacking technology that made the breach possible. Over the past week, Bitcoin had shown signs of hitting the $100K mark but experienced a sharp decline to $92K. On Friday, it regained dominance and surged past $98K.
Dogwifhat Hack Exposes Rising Crypto Scams on Social MediaConsidering the security breach on the wallet, market observers raised concern on the consequences. With the dormant address being active, a slight dip was witnessed in the Bitcoin price, but was soon recovered. Following the hack, regulatory bodies and other exchanges strengthened their monitoring for unusual flows, connected with large Bitcoin transactions.
As the investigation is still ongoing, it has provoked discussions and concerns of the decentralization of Bitcoin and increasing its protection levels. However, despite the attack, the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto still remains elusive.
