Salomon Brothers Say It Has Completed Process of Notifying 'Abandoned' Crypto Wallets

The revived Salomon Brothers announced on Thursday that it has completed the process of inserting OP_Return notices to bitcoin BTC$68,428.41 wallets assumed to have been abandoned.

According to a press release shared with CoinDesk, the New York-based investment bank is sending the notices to prevent "rogue states and criminal organizations with significant resources" from potentially accessing these wallets in future.

The process itself has created a wealth of debate, with speculation suggesting the Salomon Brothers has ties to people like Craig Wright, who has claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin. Salomon Brothers confirmed to CoinDesk that Wright is not the client.

"[They] are using Bitcoin's own infrastructure as a bulletin board," David Carvalho, CEO of Naoris Protocol, told CoinDesk. "It's very clever. And they're going big, targeting some infamous wallets like the "1Feex" address, which holds around 80,000 BTC."

According to the Salomon Brothers website, assets left untouched for a certain period of time may be considered legally abandoned under a "Doctrine of Abandonment,” thus leaving the front door open in terms of repossession.

The method of gaining access to those wallets remains unclear, Carvalho told CoinDesk that the bitcoin community "isn't doing what needs to be done" to prevent methods like Quantum hacking.

"The draft BIP proposals are entirely inadequate, and achieving consensus on a hard fork will take so long that it will be too late. Considering 6.51 million bitcoin worth of $700 billion is at stake, it’s staggering how slow the Bitcoin community is moving," he added.

The Salomon Brothers said its client, who remains anonymous, plans to allocate a portion of the recovered bitcoin to a fund intended for wallet owners who lost their keys, details of which will be released over the coming months.

The notices sent to wallet holders give a 90 day deadline, within which they can "claim ownership" of the wallets by sending a transaction or filling out a form on the Salomon Brothers website.

The press release notes that "some owners responded to the notices by moving their digital assets to new wallets."

UPDATE (Aug 8, 09:35 UTC): Adds Salomon Brothers saying Craig Wright is not its client, removes "14 years" from "Doctrine of Abandonment” section.