Key Points
- The FBI is investigating a Bitcoin Core developers meeting in relation to a $3.6 million Bitcoin theft.
- Brink executive Mike Schmidt revealed the FBI’s subpoena and shared minimal information about the attendees with the agency.
The FBI is conducting an investigation into a meeting of Bitcoin Core developers following the theft of $3.6 million worth of Bitcoin from developer Luke Dashjr.
The investigation intends to identify any potential involvement of meeting attendees in the theft.
FBI’s Subpoena and One Year Silence
Mike Schmidt, an executive at Brink, a company that offers financial support to open-source developers, disclosed the subpoena from the FBI.
In a message shared with participants, Schmidt stated that he was legally obligated to respond to the FBI’s request.
The subpoena centered on an investigation into the announced theft of Dashjr’s Bitcoins and required information about the attendees of the October 2022 CoreDev Atlanta event.
Schmidt was also legally required to keep the subpoena confidential for a year, but that order has now expired, leading him to inform the participants.
The FBI initially requested a significant amount of information, but after some resistance, they agreed to limit the information to the attendees’ GitHub usernames, full names, and email addresses.
The Investigation into Dashjr’s Bitcoin Theft
The FBI initiated the investigation after Dashjr publicly announced the theft of his Bitcoins on January 1, 2023.
He revealed that the theft was facilitated by a compromised PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key, which he used to protect his Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots downloads from malware.
The theft is particularly alarming as the assets were allegedly stolen from both hot and cold wallets.
This implies that the hackers may have physically accessed his devices, possibly during the 2022 DevCore gathering.
The ongoing investigation leaves several questions unanswered, suggesting that hardware wallets may need to be more secure if hackers can still breach them.
