An anonymous hacker labeled a entire lot of Bitcoin addresses as wallets managed by Russian security companies.

On April 26, analytics firm Chainalysis printed a document that detailed how one Bitcoiner extinct a feature of the blockchain to sound the alarm on 986 Bitcoin addresses allegedly linked to Russian intelligence.

“We no longer too prolonged ago learned what appears to be like to be an example of a extra dispute, aggressive usage of Bitcoin for counterintelligence, during the unheard of weaponization of the OP_RETURN self-discipline,” stated Chainalysis within the document that has since been deleted.

The OP_RETURN self-discipline is continuously extinct to ticket Bitcoin transactions as invalid, but it furthermore lets in customers to join messages to transactions and broadcast them to your entire blockchain.

Using the feature, the anonymous user sent hundreds of transactions to addresses, alleging the addresses bear been extinct in hacking operations by indubitably one of three Russian companies: the International Armed forces Intelligence Agency (GRU), International Intelligence Carrier (SVR), and Federal Security Carrier (FSB).

The messages bear been first and predominant written in Russian, accusing the pockets householders of paying hackers with BTC. The veracity of these allegations, nonetheless, is but to be confirmed.

The user furthermore burned over $300,000 worth of BTC in these transactions as a capability to prove these claims – one thing that Chainalysis believes aspects to the records being doubtlessly extra credible.

When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, the user stopped burning BTC and started sending the Russian-linked funds to Ukrainian reduction pockets addresses.

“The possibility that the OP_RETURN sender acquired non-public keys for Russian-managed addresses furthermore means that the Putin regime’s crypto operations aren’t stable,” wrote Chainalysis.

If these claims are, genuinely, accurate, Chainalysis necessary that the sender managed to drag off one thing “very considerable” within the context of cyber war. The Russian government has misplaced rep entry to to this Bitcoin thanks to the OP_RETURN draw and this would presumably well also be no longer easy for these companies to exercise these addresses for identical capabilities going forward.