One of many oldest wallets on the Bitcoin community has moved over $400 million in BTC after a weird authorized problem by an entity calling itself Salomon Brothers.
Funded with 4,000 BTC on June 27, 2011, when every coin was price simply $17, the pockets had grown from lower than $70,000 to greater than $400 million by the point it acquired this on-chain message.
Particularly, somebody gave a pockets 0.0003 BTC (roughly $30) to publish three OP_RETURN output messages on June thirtieth, July 2nd, and July eighth. Sure kinds of OP_RETURN output are displayed as plain textual content in block explorers comparable to Mempool.area.
These three messages claimed to be authorized notices and directed recipients to go to an internet web page.
Billions of {dollars} in “constructive possession”
The webpage options textual content that claims purchasers of the once-great Wall Avenue establishment have “constructive possession” of the pockets, though Protos has not been capable of verify its authenticity.
They declare the pockets has been deserted, present a 90-day discover interval, and make numerous different calls for.
If the October tenth deadline was certainly an actual deadline, it might have handed earlier than the pockets moved 4,000 BTC on October twenty third.
Constructive possession is a authorized time period that refers to “the precise to acquire bodily management of the property and/or numerous rights to the bodily management of one other individual.”
In fact, it’s unclear whether or not this notification constitutes authorized info provision.
Learn extra: 80,000 BTC Mt Gox pockets attacked through OP_RETURN message
The group that revealed the OP_RETURN message despatched BTC seizure notices to over 39,000 dormant wallets, together with one pockets that held over $8 billion.
So far, no US courtroom has dominated on the power to repossess previous BTC. Simply broadcast a message to your previous pockets.
Don’t go to suspicious Salomon Brothers web sites
Regardless of repeated makes an attempt to contact Salomon Brothers executives, Protoss has been unable to verify whether or not these actions have been truly the work of Salomon Brothers or another person searching for to capitalize on the model.
Salomon Brothers was as soon as rebranded to Salomon Encore, modified executives, and migrated its web site a number of instances through the years.
Moreover, this web site has beforehand contained primary grammatical errors and crimson flags of a phishing marketing campaign.
Bitcoin historians BitMEX Analysis have been additionally unconvinced that the web site was managed by the true Salomon Brothers firm.
As with every suspicious internet hyperlinks, Protoss doesn’t advocate viewing or visiting unsolicited internet pages. Person info obtained from the web site could also be used for phishing, social engineering, or bodily threats.
Learn extra: ‘Solomon Brothers’ are again — in a $279 billion Bitcoin dusting scheme
In any case, the motion of huge quantities of 14-year-old BTC, particularly those who have been the goal of doubtful on-chain recapture makes an attempt, has aroused the curiosity of Bitcoin historians.
As fashionable courts and customers of the Bitcoin community attempt to perceive who controls a few of the largest Bitcoin wallets, the 2025 Salomon Brothers branded OP_RETURN case is actually an attention-grabbing case research.
