They Found $150 Billion in ‘Lost’ Bitcoin — And Want to Claim It
The post They Found $150 Billion in ‘Lost’ Bitcoin — And Want to Claim It appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
A wild new scheme is attracting community speculation, as a firm tried to recover up to $150 billion in “abandoned” Bitcoin. It aims to establish a new legal precedent for seizing lost tokens. Investors purchased the rights to a famous, defunct Wall Street firm and began sending messages to around 40,000 wallets. These contained warnings to prove active ownership or risk a legal battle. Sponsored Sponsored Reclaiming Abandoned Bitcoin? Dusting attacks have been out of fashion for several years now, as crypto hackers have largely moved on to newer, dangerous strategies. However, a convoluted story just surfaced employing this technique. Specifically, a “resurrected” Wall Street firm tried to recover around $150 billion in “abandoned” Bitcoin. A few alleged former employees of Salomon Brothers, a famous Wall Street bank that has been defunct for over 20 years, bought the rights to the firm’s name. These owners have since opened a business using the reputable name, and apparently partnered with an outside client to try and gain custody over these tokens. The bizarre incident worked like this: the firm dusted around 40,000 wallets with tiny transactions. Each transaction included an on-chain message, claiming that the owner needed to prove that the Bitcoin had not been abandoned. If the firm received no response in 90 days, it warned that it might open legal proceedings. All told, it sent these messages to wallets containing around 2.33 million BTC in total. Some of these “abandoned” Bitcoin owners were clearly rattled by the notices; one user moved tokens worth around $9.7 billion. This encouraged a lot of community interest and speculation. We have no idea how many such wallets are still under active ownership. Sponsored Sponsored A Convoluted Legal Strategy For the record, although this incident looks very strange or even shady, it isn’t necessarily accurate…
Filed under: News - @ October 9, 2025 11:24 pm