Microsoft set to vote on Bitcoin, Peter Todd hiding, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Oct. 20

Peter Todd forced into hiding after HBO doc claims he invented Bitcoin

Canadian cryptographer and computer scientist Peter Todd says he’s been forced into hiding for fear of his safety after an HBO documentary alleged he was the inventor of Bitcoin.

The film, dubbed Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, aired on Oct. 9 and claimed to finally reveal the mystery surrounding the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of a person thought to be the inventor of Bitcoin. 

Ultimately, after exploring other potential candidates, the documentary ended on a dubious note with Todd stating, “Well yeah, I’m Satoshi Nakamoto.” 

Todd has repeatedly denied that he is Satoshi Nakamoto and dismissed the film’s claims. According to a recent interview with Wired, he’s been forced into hiding over fears for his safety. He says filmmaker Cullen Hoback, the documentary’s director, used specious evidence to support the documentary’s erroneous conclusion. 

However, according to several sources and footage shown in the documentary itself, Todd evidently has a history of jokingly stating “I am Satoshi.” These statements appear to have been made in the vein of the famous line “I am Spartacus” from the eponymous film Spartacus. 

In the 1960 film, a group of warriors are captured by Roman soldiers and offered mercy if they’ll identify and send forth the man known as Spartacus. In response, the warriors each claim, in turn, to be Spartacus as a sign of solidarity. 

Microsoft shareholders proposes firm look into investing in Bitcoin

Microsoft shareholders are set to vote in December on whether the tech giant should publicly assess adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet, a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission reveals.

In the Oct. 24 filing, Microsoft disclosed that a proposal titled “Assessment of Investing in Bitcoin” will be voted on by certain shareholders in a Dec. 10 meeting. Still, the Microsoft board recommends voting against it because they already “evaluate a wide range of investable assets,” including Bitcoin.

The National Center for Public Policy Research pushed the proposal, which highlighted business intelligence firm MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment strategy and noted that it has outperformed Microsoft by over 300% this year “despite doing a fraction of the business” of Microsoft. It also said that institutional and corporate adoption is becoming more “commonplace” through spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Additionally, the research firm noted that Bitcoin remains volatile but could serve as a hedge against inflation and corporate bond yields. “At minimum, companies should evaluate the benefits of holding some, even just 1% of its assets in Bitcoin,” it said.

Hacker behind fake Bitcoin ETF X post pleads not guilty

Eric Council Jr., the individual charged over his involvement in allegedly hacking the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account and posting a message suggesting that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) had been approved, has pleaded not guilty in a DC courtroom.

In an Oct. 25 arraignment before Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Council Jr. entered a plea of not guilty for one charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud. He was allegedly part of a group that hacked the SEC’s X account in January, publishing a post that claimed the commission had officially approved spot Bitcoin ETFs for the first time.

Officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Council Jr. in Alabama on Oct. 17. According to Bloomberg, prosecutors intended to “extend a plea” to Council Jr. It’s unclear if US authorities also intend to execute additional arrest warrants for individuals involved in the SEC breach. 

According to US authorities, the group of which Council Jr. was allegedly a part took control of the SEC’s X account through a SIM swap attack. X’s safety team reported, with the SEC later confirming, that the commission’s account did not have two-factor authentication enabled, leading to the breach.

Bitfinex wallet hacker returns most of the $20 million back to US gov’t

The malicious actor who drained a United States government wallet of approximately $20 million on Oct. 24, containing seized funds from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, returned $19.3 million to the government wallet less than 24 hours later.

According to Arkham Intelligence, several wallets controlled by the hacker returned the funds to the US government wallet beginning with the characters “0xc9E.” At the time of this writing, roughly 88% of the funds have been returned.

Onchain data shows the hacker returned approximately 2,412 Ether and $13.2 million in Aave-staked USDC (aUSDC). Independent blockchain investigator ZackXBT noted that the returned funds do not include the approximately $700,000 the hacker sent to instant exchanges.

The identity of the hacker and the motivation behind the attack are not currently known, but the incident reflects a growing trend of hacks and exploits in the third quarter of 2024.

Homeowner lawsuit over $170K crypto theft rejected on appeal  

A homeowner’s attempt to sue his insurer for failing to cover his $170,000 loss to a crypto scam was rejected by a United States appeals court, with a three-judge panel ruling there had been no error in dismissing his case. 

The Fourth Circuit Appeals Court ruled on Oct. 24 that a Virginia District Court judge was correct in ruling that Ali Sedaghatpour had no breach of contract claim against Lemonade Insurance because his homeowner’s policy only covered “direct physical loss” of property.

Sedaghatpour sued Lemonade Insurance in 2022, claiming the insurer should have covered him under the policy for $170,000 in crypto stolen from him in a scam. The suit was a rare case of a crypto user attempting to claim that crypto is personal property under a home insurance policy and legally force an insurer to cover scam crypto losses.

The appellate judges said that under Virginia law, direct physical loss “requires present or impending material destruction or material harm.” They added: “Because the digital theft of digital currency does not amount to a ‘direct physical loss,’ no coverage for Sedaghatpour’s loss of cryptocurrency is available under that section.”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $67,075, Ether (ETH) at $2,484 and XRP at $0.51. The total market cap is at $2.29 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) at 75.97%, Safe (SAFE) at 67.21% and ApeCoin (APE) at 59.95%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Aerodrome Finance (AERO) at 22.72%, MANTRA (OM) at 16.46% and Mog Coin (MOG) at 15.66%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“I’ll happily say that I think Saylor’s comments are batshit insane.”

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

“By 2024 end, we expect Wall Street to replace Satoshi as the top Bitcoin wallet.”

Bernstein Research

“I’m still optimistic that FIT21, which is the regulatory framework bill, and the stablecoin bill have possible consideration in the lame duck.”

French Hill, United States Representative

“94% of the Bitcoin supply is in profit, with the majority of coins having been purchased at the $55K level.”

Axel Adler, independent crypto analyst

“I look back on that, and I regret that. I think we made a mistake by not leaning in earlier, and we’re trying to make up for lost time to some degree.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs

“Whoever will win the elections, I think it is very, very important that crypto regulation, sensible crypto regulations, and stablecoin regulations will come to fruition in a way that will protect the end-users.”

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether

Prediction of The Week

Bitcoin analyst: $100K BTC price by February ‘completely within reason’

Bitcoin is in the initial stages of a bull run and a $100,000 BTC price may come within three months. In his latest market analysis on Oct. 24, network economist Timothy Peterson said that “ignition” has already come for a new Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has spent nearly eight months consolidating after its all-time high of $73,800 in March. For Peterson, however, the real gains are yet to come — and may even see BTC/USD hit six figures for the first time in the next three months.

“Bitcoin’s current run is not meaningfully different than prior price paths,” he wrote on X. “This puts a big dent in the ‘diminishing marginal returns’ argument.”

An accompanying chart compared BTC price performance since its last macro low in late 2022 to previous cycles, with Peterson dismissing the idea that Bitcoin investors see lower comparative returns each cycle.

“A move just above trend puts Bitcoin at $100k within 90 days. Completely within reason,” he said.

FUD of The Week

Jailed crypto scammers blew stolen funds on shark tank, hookers: Report

Five people were sentenced to prison for their roles in a $21.6 million crypto fraud in which they reportedly spent the stolen funds on a shark tank, private jet rides, sex workers and a luxury car.

The criminals raked in $21.6 million (20 million euros) from about 40,000 investors through multiple investment schemes, including the EXW Wallet and the EXW crypto token, Austrian news outlet Heute reported on Oct. 23.

Two of the defendants were sentenced to five years, two received 30 months and one got 18 months of prison time. Five others were acquitted while some have continued to hide from authorities.

The fraud trial at the Klagenfurt Regional Court was the largest in Austrian history, Heute noted. Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner handed down the sentences on Oct. 23 after two months of trial and 300 hours of negotiations.

Heute said the fraudsters lived like they were in a “Hollywood film” — partying in some of Dubai’s “poshest” clubs and traveling between cities in private jets. They even bought a shark tank in a villa, which news and review site BehindMLM reported was located in Bali.

Radiant Capital hacker moves $52M in stolen funds

The hacker behind the recent theft from decentralized finance protocol Radiant Capital has moved almost all of the stolen funds from layer-2 protocols to Ethereum in a possible move toward obscuring its location. 

On Oct. 24, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that addresses linked to the Radiant Capital exploiter have bridged “nearly all” of the ill-gotten crypto from the exploit from layer-2 network Arbitrum and the Binance BNB Chain to the Ethereum network.

The total amount moved was about 20,500 Ether, worth around $52 million, PeckShield noted. 

On Oct. 23, Radiant Capital reminded users to secure their wallets by revoking approvals to affected smart contracts. “Failing to do so puts your funds at risk of being drained,” it warned. 

The cross-chain DeFi lending protocol halted its lending markets after it was exploited for more than $50 million in the cybersecurity breach on Oct. 16. 

Lazarus Group exploited Chrome vulnerability with fake NFT game

The North Korean hacker collective Lazarus Group used a fake blockchain-based game to exploit a zero-day vulnerability in Google’s Chrome browser and install spyware that stole wallet credentials. Kaspersky Lab analysts noticed the exploit in May and reported it to Google, which has fixed it.

The hacker’s play-to-earn multiplayer online battle arena game was fully playable and had been promoted on LinkedIn and X. The game was called DeTankZone or DeTankWar and used non-fungible tokens as tanks in a worldwide competition.

Users were infected with spyware from the website even if they did not download the game. The hackers modeled the game on the existing DeFiTankLand.

The hackers used malware called Manuscrypt followed by a previously unknown “type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript engine.” It was the seventh zero-day vulnerability found in Chrome in 2024 through mid-May.

Kaspersky principal security expert Boris Larin said:

“The significant effort invested in this campaign suggests they had ambitious plans, and the actual impact could be much broader, potentially affecting users and businesses worldwide.”

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Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.