Bitwise executive confirms ETF received $400 of unsolicited Bitcoin

A apical Bitwise enforcement acknowledged connected Jan. 26 that his firm’s spot Bitcoin ETF has received hundreds of dollars of unsolicited Bitcoin.

Co-founder & CTO Hong Kim wrote that the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) received 998,085 satoshis worthy $419 crossed 35 UTXOs implicit 2 days.

He suggested that this volition simply summation the ETF’s value, writing:

“[It’s] negligible compared to the [fund’s assets nether management] (~$511 cardinal arsenic of yesterday) but those sats are added to [net plus value] and accrue to the payment of shareholders.”

When asked whether the further funds could alternatively beryllium donated to Bitcoin developers, Kim noted that 10% of the fund’s profits are donated to open-source Bitcoin development. However, this donation argumentation was portion of Bitwise’s earlier ETF plans and is not a nonstop effect to the receipt of the latest funds.

Transfers to Bitwise’s Bitcoin code were seemingly prompted by the firm’s determination to station its code publicly, which occurred connected Jan. 24.

Reasons down transactions are unclear

The motivations for the transactions are unclear. Bloomberg expert Eric Balchunas implied that the transfers were benevolent, writing:

“Curious to spot if this is simply a one-off oregon commencement of thing and we spot [people] flip tips into the proverbial ETF jar similar if the money had a bully twelvemonth oregon conscionable for the hellhole of it.”

On the different hand, the intent whitethorn beryllium malicious, arsenic tiny unsolicited transactions are typically referred to arsenic “dusting” attacks.

Yet Kim ruled retired immoderate specified problems, writing:

“Handling [dusting] isn’t that hard for an organization custodian and the framing that you tin ‘attack’ a nationalist bitcoin code by sending it escaped sats doesn’t clasp truth.”

He specifically denied the anticipation of harm done connections to questionable addresses. Kim wrote that the ETF’s custodian, Coinbase Custody, volition emblem immoderate funds received from OFAC-sanctioned addresses. Such funds volition beryllium “left untouched” without being added to the ETF’s nett plus value, helium said.

The station Bitwise enforcement confirms ETF received $400 of unsolicited Bitcoin appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.