Bitcoin core developer loses 216 BTC to ‘PGP compromise’

Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr said he lost “basically” all his BTC stash to the compromise of his  PGP key in a Jan. 1 Twitter thread.

Dashjr did not reveal the amount of BTC he lost to the alleged hackers. He said some of his BTC was co-joined with the wallet “1YAR6opJCfDjBNdn5bV8b5Mcu84tv92fa.”

Blockchain explorer showed that the wallet transacted four times and holds 216.93 BTC — worth roughly $3.6 million — as of press time.

Dashjr said he had no idea how the malicious players accessed his PGP keys. PGP keys employ an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication.

Dashjr added that his attempts to reach law enforcement agencies had been futile so far.

Community tries to explain the incidence

Crypto-security experts have raised several theories behind the compromise.

Blockchain engineer Peter Todd posited that Luke might not have been a victim of a targeted hack. Todd added that Luke didn’t keep different activities separated. So a backdoored software could be one of the ways he was compromised.

Meanwhile, several community members pointed out that Dashjr previously said his server was compromised on Nov. 17, 2022. Many others also questioned if he used LastPass — a password manager that suffered a data breach in December 2022 that led to its users’ data loss.

Some also suggested that Dashjr was lying about the compromise in a bid to avoid paying taxes by claiming he lost all his BTC.

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao tweeted that his exchange would freeze the BTC if it is sent there. He added that:

“If there is anything else we can help with, please let us know. We deal with these often, and have Law Enforcement (LE) relationships worldwide.”