One of the original developers of the Bitcoin core, Luke Dashjr, is said to have lost more than 200 BTC in a hack at the start of the new year, which is sad for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
When his PGP key was hijacked, Luke Dashjr revealed on Twitter that several of his bitcoins had been taken. In order to decrypt data, a PGP key, also known as a Pretty Good Privacy key, uses two keys.
Using the Bitcoin mixer CoinJoin, four transactions totaling a sizeable sum of Dashjr’s Bitcoins were sent to a wallet address. The address now has 216.93 BTC, or almost $3.6 million, in it.
In November, fresh malware/backdoors on the system designed especially to breach Dashjr’s server allowed access by an unidentified person to his server.
The server was reaccessed on Christmas Day, and Dashjr supplied IPs that were thought to have been used in the assault. Sadly, the planned assault was effective, and the hackers were able to take almost 200 Bitcoins.
Binance CEO responded to Dashjr’s tweet “Sorry to see you lose so much. Informed our security team to monitor. If it comes our way, we will freeze it.”
“Sad to see even an OG #Bitcoin Core Developer losing 200+ BTC ($3.5 million),” CZ said in a tweet from his official account. Self-custody has a unique set of dangers. We’ll watch and attempt to provide assistance where we can.
The discovery has also spurred a debate on self-custody, with some contending that while it isn’t always detrimental, users shouldn’t directly handle their keys. The FTX fiasco forced the community to adhere to one of the fundamental tenets of cryptography: “Not your keys, not your money.”
Compiled by Coinbold
