Tay 💖 Profile picture
Mar 31, 2023 37 tweets 20 min read Read on X
The selling of this bitcoin is, by far, the least interesting part of the saga.

The govt's seizure, the dude who had his bitcoin seized, and why it even got seized in the first place is full of so many amazing, hysterical, enraging gems.

Heads up...not a short story. Buckle up.
To set the stage, dude w/ the bitcoin is a super OG bitcoiner living in Gainesville, Georgia.

In Sept 2012 he executed a very basic "hack" on the Silk Road and withdrew the coins.

Not a bad dude. Not a huge hack either. Way less than a mil at the time.

justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/u…
After collecting up all these coins (~60k BTC) this dude, from at least 2012 thru at least 2021, fucking *lived* life.
Dude lived life like a only an OG bitcoiner from Georgia ever could.
Like, seriously, #bitcoinsquadgoals
what could ever be better than getting hammered and trolling roger and jihan with your stash of 60k btc + btc-fork coins?? 😂
lolllllllllllllll yeah, well, he did that too. 🤣
Keep in mind, this entire time, dude has a fucking stash of BTC thats growing from ~$150k to ~$3.36 billion dollars!!!!!

😳

where do you even keep ~$3.36 billion dollars????!!?
Turns out, he had a "state-of-the-art computer setup" protecting his coins.

Well, he had a "state-of-the-art computer setup" at least.
He kept his $3+ billy bitcoin in an underground floor safe.

And on a raspberry pi under blankets in a popcorn tin in his bathroom closet.
Oh, and in the kitchen drawer.

And on 25 Casascius coins.

😳 🤣

justice.gov/usao-sdny/pres…
T H R E E B I L L I O N D O L L A R S ! ! !
Now obviously youre wondering, "damn. how'd he get caught?"

And, well, considering he signed a message using his 60k BTC key and posted it to bitcointalk... 🙈

A better question though is *why* did he get caught? Like, who cares that someone hacked Silk Road back in 2012????
Turns out the govt cares. They *really* care. But not about lil Jimmy. Nope.

Govt cares bc it would look *really* bad if corrupt federal agents who were investigating Silk Road in 2013 still had a $3b stash of BTC that the (less corrupt) investigation in 2015 missed. 😬
I know—that last tweet was a doozy. Let's back up. You need some more context so you can appreciate what's happening here.

If we rewind even further back to 2011, Adrian Chen of Gawker infamy discovered the Silk Road and wrote about it.

gawker.com/the-undergroun…
In response, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia stood up on their high horses and demanded, loudly, that the DOJ and DEA 'shut down this shit down immediately!!!!!'

archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id…
And in response to that every possible agency jumped up and started trying to take down Silk Road.

Like, literally, all of them.

FBI, USSS, ICE, HSI, DEA, IRS-CI, USPS and random ass local agencies / individual agents, too.

h/t @lamoustache antilop.cc/sr/#timeline
Naturally, due to the huge number of federal cooks in the kitchen + the newness of Bitcoin + the fact being a federal law enforcement agent does preclude you from being a lying, stealing, scheming, greedy bastard...it didnt go super well.

h/t @a_greenberg amazon.com/Tracers-Dark-G…
Notably, they didn't end up finding the 20-something year old kid living in SF until late-2013.

2+ full years later.

He was in SF.

😐



And remember how I told you earlier that James hacked the Silk Road in late-2012 via a super basic race condition?
Silk Road was also hacked in *early*-2012 by a still unidentified " Individual X " using the exact same method. (That ~$1 billion worth of BTC was similarly seized in November 2020.)

news.bitcoin.com/a-look-at-indi…
There were a ton of incidents like this. Silk Road was not a state-of-the-art platform. It was basically duct-taped together.

How tf did it take so long for the govt to actually track down the servers and identity of Ross and other admins??????

antilop.cc/sr/#timeline
Oh right, they were too busy being corrupt as all fuck.

e.g. In Jan 2013 the dedicated Silk Road unit did a sting on one of the mods of SR.

Then they took over his account and......stole all the BTC they could from Silk Road users and vendors. 😬

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
This isnt a conspiracy theory. These feds—Shaun Bridges and Carl Mark Force IV—were both busted after Katie Haun (then prosecutor @ NDCA) + Tigran Gambaryan (then investigator @ IRS-CI) got a tip from....Bitstamp. 🤡

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

@a_greenberg amazon.com/Tracers-Dark-G…
The depth of fraud is really something else. The various filings are worth reading in full. These guys—who were not working together—were so fucking independently disgustingly dirty.

e.g. Corrupt US Secret Service Agent Bridges:
antilop.cc/sr/files/2015_…
+
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2642…
And corrupt DEA agent Carl Force

Extortion, theft, lies, and then more thefts.

antilop.cc/sr/files/2015_…

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
And even more theft, more lies, more fraud, more extortion by Corrupt DEA agent Carl Force

antilop.cc/sr/files/2015_…
+

antilop.cc/sr/files/2015_…
And Corrupt Bro #1, Bridges, *after* being arrested and pleading, RE-STOLE THE FUNDS THAT HAD TECHNICALLY (but not literally) SEIZED **TWICE** by then.

And then tried to run!!!

Cannot make this shit up. 🤣

Arrest #2:
antilop.cc/sr/files/2016_…
+
antilop.cc/sr/files/2016_…
BRRRROOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

antilop.cc/sr/files/2016_…
Anyways.

Obvs these 2 lying, murder-plotting, bitcoin-stealing and re-stealing asswipes were both eventually thrown in prison.

Carl Force got 78 months in October 2015.
oig.justice.gov/press/2015/201…

Shaun Bridges got 71+24 months consecutive in November 2017.
justice.gov/opa/pr/former-…
And then they were released from prison. Bc they are not evil like Ross Ulbricht is. Or something. 😒

Name: CARL MARK FORCE
Register Number: 58633-037
Released On: 10/09/2020

Name: SHAUN W BRIDGES
Register Number: 20436-111
Released On: 10/19/2021

bop.gov/mobile/find_in…
Sidenote: It is truly appalling that Ross got the literal book thrown at him, will never be released, and these guys got half a slap on the wrist.

Especially considering not one word of this corrupt shitshow was allowed in Ross's trial. 😨 #freeross
And that's the story of how the govt came to be in a position to dump piles of BTC via Coinbase today.

They knew there was unaccounted for BTC that had been stolen from SR.
They knew who stole repeatedly from SR before.
And those agents were about to be released.

🤡
But more importantly, its why the small handful of folks in the govt who actually know Bitcoin—the same ones who took down the corrupt agents, Alpha Bay, BTC-E, Welcome 2 Video, etc.—went from working those cases to working random, long-forgotten-about Silk Road hacks and stuff.

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More from @tayvano_

Nov 16
Gotta correct the record on a headline that's been running wild lately re: the WazirX hack.

Bc it is NOT significant. Or a "breakthrough."

Dude they arrested wasnt involved in the hack. He doesnt know the hackers.

Plz stop regurgitating self-aggrandizing press releases. Image
Here's the actual situation:

At some point prior to July 2024 the actual hackers landed a backdoor onto something that gave them some access to the WazirX multisig signers and/or their signatures.

We don't know what or who was compromised and it doesn't really matter.
Initial toehold was likely gained by tricking someone at WazirX or Liminal into installing malware -> escalated from there.

This access allowed the hackers to intercept/insert invisible, malicious payloads for signing in a way where none of the 3+ signers were able to notice.
Read 21 tweets
Oct 20
With the recent sophisticated hacks fresh on everyone's mind, there's been a lot of talk about ✨fancy stacks and setups.✨

Yes, you should evaluate how—and with what—you sign txns.

But building a custom UI for your LAN Qubes OS AWS KMS everyday is not really the answer 😅
Background on the referenced hacks (feel free to skip):

1. Funds were stolen from each org's multisig.

2. Keys themselves were not compromised.

3. In Radiant and WazirX and maybe DMM, the keys backing the multisig were actually only on hardware wallets + actually controlled by distinct parties.

Radiant - $50m, like 2 days ago
medium.com/@RadiantCapita…

WazirX - $230m in July
x.com/WazirXIndia/st…
liminalcustody.com/blog/update-on…

DMM Bitcoin - $305m in May
The least amt is known about DMM, including whether keys were cold vs hot. Early theories said address poisoning. It def wasn't that. Attached is rampant speculation (likely all wrong)
See also: x.com/mononautical/s…Image
Image
Image
Also, note, any organization that can implement / enforce EDR, etc. should do so. Full stop. End of conversation.

However, the crypto industry generally considers this a non-starter for all sorts of philosophical + practical reasons.

So, until we get there, here's the deal:
Read 15 tweets
Sep 5
Alright so comments here are a bit looney and I don’t particularly like them bc it distracts and undermines the actual risk.

Spoiler: @coinbase getting hacked is not the risk.

But there is still risk. Even when using Coinbase.
This gunna be long. Sorry. But it needs to be said. Clearly.

First: the reason I say Coinbase is not the risk is because they take INSANE measures to mitigate the risk of being hacked.

They always have.

They are really fucking serious abt security across the board.
Coinbase is NOT different bc they’ve *eliminated* the risk though.

Bc they haven’t. Bc they can’t. NO ONE CAN.

This shit is wild. The incentives are too much. The hackers have too many resources.

They will literally burn 0 days to get at Coinbase. They *have* burned 0 days.
Read 18 tweets
Jul 8
Crypto folks (hopefully) already know that Lazarus is one of the most prevalent threat actors targeting this industry.

They rekt more people, companies, protocols than anyone else.

But it's good to know exactly how they get in. Bc another smart contract audit won't save you.
For example, one long-time fave method:
- Contact employee via social/messaging app
- Direct them to a Github for a job offer, "skills test," or to help with a bug
- Rekt individual's device
- Gain entry to company's AWS
- Rekt company (and their users)

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/th…
Image
With permission, I’m sharing a recent convo that led to $2m+ stolen so you can see how this DPRK crew (TraderTraitor) is operating today.

These convos are pretty rare to see. Thefts occur months later, so very few uncover how the initial entry was made.

cisa.gov/news-events/cy…Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 19
Txn History Deposit 1

0x5a7732d8710af819dd16c82d38ed4385e137285c

0xce7d8feb6f4a88f4a2694beb8f92be6a1670d3a8fa243ab3416b46f4576d3fc5

0x8cd115e1d45dc80894204244a2749cb7cdb7ac7b14cf9809cac19714d3626bfc

0xa119fd1efd639fde5837566dfd843ba401825702e7694ce1591194b2b98297ae

0x0dea174d7bd9f6e978b98e6e1d0a0f1fc22d90f82f35537b1754d3f73652f1d6

0xa2bd92a528ffc2cb66f7317ff9e6ad55f094112e2937980c8b782d052d22dc76

0x886f187b7f3929032072a98160dac084d02a0ce62b556c64140d76f399d4922d

0x9d661a1d89613e2fa53a9ca63ad64db5401cde7d70f4eefb883724b0f1a57a31

0x1dbc11b50913f8633c049072428f4db0cce4d38cabe6087afc472c6668f5dc1a

0xa3a4a5878da0240cf0dbcb1b68bde88b877ed2c0c2390d000f796cda2c579af9

0xa158192d24ca8fa79c95fa52f8c3d564e8f6304bacea9c9dfca440d7da33ddf7

0xa7285a96eb95dd76ce129f063424679a6d465b7b9a284cdac528405c75ce8393

0x3dd977a7b2edbbe629a8bab9a9b3f0ccf253ea12e31c6f748ddac9e025167e67
Read 20 tweets
Apr 10
🧵Highlights from the UN Security Council's 2023 report on DPRK

This one was a whopping 615 pages 😳

These reports are always like a birds eye view of random, raw, deep intel. They're amazing and shed light on attribution, irl banking networks, etc.

un.org/securitycounci…
re: MaybachsImage
Image
Image
Read 25 tweets

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