The post 500 BTC from the seized wallet of a drug dealer just moved – how was the key cracked? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Back in 2011, Clifton Collins acquired 6,000 BTC. After his arrest in 2017, the coins were considered lost. Now, one of the addresses moved 500 BTC, raising questions about who managed to find or crack the private keys.  The known BTC wallets of Clifton Collins were idle for years, and the keys were considered lost or beyond reach. In the past day, Arkham Intelligence intercepted a single transaction that moved 500 BTC to a new address, which is now sitting idle. The funds are now valued at $35.5M, with over $426M held on all 12 addresses linked to Collins. 500 BTC moved from the wallets of Clifton Collins after a decade of no transactions. Reportedly, law enforcement managed to gain access to the private key in an undisclosed cyber team operation. | Source: Arkham Intelligence. When Collins was arrested, his belongings were cleared out and thrown away, including the hidden private keys. Reportedly, the keys were written on paper and hidden in a fishing rod case.  It appears some of the keys may have been found, or maybe there was an alternative storage of the seed phrase.  How were the BTC keys discovered?  Any move of BTC from an old wallet raises multiple speculations. In the past months, BTC that was presumably lost started moving on multiple occasions, as even older whales decided to take profit.  In this case, there were multiple speculations on the discovery of one of the wallets linked to Collins. Since not all BTC were stored on the same address, most of the coins may remain idle. The coins were moved to a Coinbase Custody address, a move that has been used by law enforcement to safeguard seized assets. Europol claimed they used advanced decryption to move the BTC  The movement of 500 BTC was not…

---

Filed under: News - @ March 25, 2026 8:28 am