Is a missing Wall Street bank claiming Bitcoins from old wallets without activity?

By Canuto

Some of the first Bitcoin users with wallets without activity in years have been receiving notices from an entity that calls himself the revived Banco Salomon Brothers. Is it legitimate? What is happening?

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Old bitcoin wallets receive notices from Op_return claiming their funds.
A “revived” entity by Banco Salomon Brothers claims to be behind, is it legitimate?
Millions of Bitcoin mined before 2012 potentially at stake.
Without a private key they will not be able to access but perhaps quantum computing things.
What is happening?

Since the beginning of July 2025, multiple reports indicate that an entity that defines the “revive” Salomon Brothers —A historical investment bank absorbed by Citigroup In 2003— he has begun to send alleged “legal notices” through the Blockchain of Bitcoin. What is happening?

Last month, members of the community of Bitcoin (BTC) detected that old wallets, some with hundreds or thousands of BTC, were receiving messages in the chain using a function called op_return.

These messages warned that Bitcoins contained in these directions had been, or would be confiscated, and urged the headlines to carry out a chain transaction to demonstrate the property. All of them redirected a website identified as “Salomon Bros”.

Alerts came through small transactions of dust —Wore satiates of Satoshis – sent to directions created before 2012 that still keep great intact balances. Among the target wallets is the infame 1feex, which contains about 80,000 BTC linked to the theft of Mt. Gox In March 2011, valued today at approximately USD $ 8.6 billion.

Op_return as a notification channel

Op_return is a OPCODE of the bitcoin protocol that allows to include arbitrary data in a transaction, marking the exit as non -gas. This means that registered information cannot be used as an entry into future transactions. It is an efficient and permanent way to leave visible messages in the chain without inflating the set of unbelievable outputs (UTXO).

In this case, transactions aimed at former BTC holders contained messages such as:

Legal notice: We have taken possession of this wallet and its content.
Not abandoned? Try it by means of a chain transaction using a private key before September 30.
Notice to the owner: See www.salomonbros.com/owner_notice

According to a previous report, Some 4,000 wallets would have received these types of notifications. Even a set of inactive addresses since 2011 – attributed to a single “whale” – moved more than 80,000 BTC after receiving one of these Op_return messages.

Phishing or legitimate claim?

Researchers from Bitmex Research They have described the campaign as an attempt to Phishing disguised as legal claim, comparing it with tactics used in the past by figures such as Calvin Ayre or Craig Wright.

The security analyst @0xzilayo He also cataloged the notices as “definitely phishing attempts” – a cyber attack technique in which a malicious actor supplants a legitimate entity – and said that “they have no legitimacy.”

The website to which they direct these messages exhibits the brand “Salomon Brothers”And he says he has a “Advisory Council” formed by former employees of the historic bond business of the 80s.

According to its content, the entity would have taken “constructive possession” of inactive wallets and would grant any “owner of good faith” a period of 90 days – until October 5, 2025 – to prove ownership or lose all rights. The test can be carried out by moving funds from the management or sending personal information through a web form.

Bitmex ResearchHowever, he argues that neither the domain nor the entity show any link with the missing investment bank that was influential in Wall Street between the 1970s 1990, and that it stopped operating in 2003.

Anonymous client and “abandonment doctrine”

This week, a new version of the events appeared: according to a statement cited by COINDESKthe “revived” Salomon Brothers claims to have completed the process of sending notifications op_return to claim wallets considered abandoned under the call Abandonment doctrinegranting 90 days for the headlines to respond.

The entity says acting in the name of a Anonymous client with the alleged objective of preventing “rebel states and criminal organizations with significant resources“They can access those addresses in the future.

The central argument is that inactive assets for more than 14 years can be legally abandoned, opening the door to their “recovery.” However, in Bitcoin Only the owner of the private password can move the funds, so it is not clear what mechanism could be used to take control of those currencies.

The statement also mentions a Plan to create a restitution fund for legitimate owners who have lost their private keysin case of recovering the Bitcoins allegedly abandoned, according to the report.

Risk of quantum hacking

The entity that is presented as Salomon Brothers He has not specified how many old wallets their notifications have received. In any case, in the cryptocurrency ecosystem there is an unwavering premise: Only the owner of the private key can access or move the funds of an address.

However, the debate that the episode has unleashed goes beyond the technique. David Carvalho, executive director of Naoris protocolhe has warned COINDESK that the risk of advances in quantum computing compromising cryptocurrencies is real: “6.51 million bitcoins, with a value of 700 billion dollars, are at stake“he said, reproaching the community of Bitcoin by “Move slow“To address the problem.

At this point, there is no clear evidence that the once again renowned Bank of New York is behind. What we do are data: Visible OP_Return messages, active websites, quick responses from some headlines, and a lot of concern about possible deceptions.

The case also puts on the table how Legal gray areas They could be used by malicious actors to try to monetize inactive or even stolen coins, challenging both technical security and legal frameworks surrounding digital assets.

Article written with the help of AI, edited by Hannah Pérez / Diariobitcoin

Image generated with AI tool, under free use license

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