CoinDesk
Nineteen wallets holding 18,270 stolen BTC have received a stream of tiny payments with messages attached, but the coins have not moved since Thursday. The notes range from pleas for money to token promotions and advice on laundering the funds. One sender spent about $46 plus fees to send “Help me bro” to every wallet three times.
Why it matters
Bitcoin transactions can carry short messages through OP_RETURN, which records up to 80 bytes permanently on the blockchain. That feature has turned the hacker’s addresses into targets for strangers trying to reach, influence or promote something to the person controlling the funds. None of the messages has drawn a response.
Some messages urged the hacker to use a site posing as a THORChain swap service and avoid returning the funds to Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao. The attacker has already used THORChain to move stolen assets. The network halted trading on 10 of its 13 chains over the weekend.
Market impact
The larger movement is in the stolen assets themselves. The FBI links the attacker to North Korea, and on Sunday the attacker began converting 970,522 stolen SOL, worth about $96 million, into bitcoin through the Relay bridge.
That conversion puts the stolen SOL on a path into BTC while the 18,270 BTC held by the 19 wallets remain still. The attempted messages and promotions have not changed the wallets’ activity.
Frequently asked questions
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How many wallets hold the stolen bitcoin, and how much do they contain?
Nineteen wallets hold 18,270 BTC. The coins have not moved since Thursday, although the addresses have received small payments carrying messages.
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How are senders attaching messages to bitcoin payments?
They use OP_RETURN, a Bitcoin transaction output that can record a message of up to 80 bytes permanently on the blockchain.
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What did one sender spend to send “Help me bro” to the wallets?
The sender spent about $46 in bitcoin plus fees to send the message to each of the 19 wallets three times.
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How much stolen SOL is being converted into bitcoin?
The attacker began converting 970,522 stolen SOL, worth about $96 million, into bitcoin through the Relay bridge.
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What happened to THORChain during the weekend?
THORChain halted trading on 10 of its 13 chains. The attacker had already used the cross-chain network to move stolen funds.
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