The British Supreme Court ordered a freeze of 865,000 dollars in bitcoin (BTC) in a blackmail case in December. This is evidenced by legal documents released by the court this month. The hackers wanted to redeem their captured bitcoin via the Bitfinex crypto-exchange.

It is the first time that the British Court recognized an cryptocurrency as a form of possession.

865,000 dollars in bitcoin

It is a fairly complex matter, with a Canadian insurer being the victim of a ransonware attack at the end of last year. This is software with the aim of “taking hostage” of a person or company and demanding ransom.

At this insurer, more than a thousand desktop computers and twenty servers have been infected by a computer virus. For example, it was possible to install a malware program remotely. This means that business-critical data is encrypted in such a way that it becomes unusable.

The hackers demanded $ 1.2 million in ransom to release the files. In the end, the insurer of the victim has concluded a deal with the hackers.

The ransom of $ 950,000 in bitcoin was transferred after the release of the data. At that time it was 109.25 bitcoin in total. The value of this has since increased by at least 25%.

Ransomware & crypto

Ransonware is an appropriate means for criminals to collect ransom. Companies are increasingly becoming a goal. At the beginning of December 2019, the Texan company CyrusOne paid $ 600,000 in ransom to BTC.

In June 2019, hackers were able to destroy a system of a government service in Florida, USA. The state then also paid $ 600,000 in bitcoin. In a number of cases it appears to be a successful strategy for hackers to collect bitcoin.

Blockchain analysis

As a counter-measure, the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis has been hired to follow the route of the “ransom bitcoins”. It turned out that 96 BTC had been laundered via the Bitfinex crypto exchange.

In December, the Court requested Bitfinex to freeze the bitcoin and to make its holder known.

Bitfinex does not explicitly say whether the 96 BTC has been intercepted and the holder has been announced.

Semi-Privacy

As is known, transactions on the bitcoin network are pseudo-anonymous. Both the business community and governments have more and more tools in their hands to link a person to a bitcoin address.

Because anti-money laundering rules are in force in Europe and worldwide, crypto grants are required by law to share customer data with government departments. In the bitcoin community there is a counter-movement to collect “non-custodial” bitcoin: bitcoin that does not require the sharing of your private data.