STATEMENT REGARDING WALLET NOTICES

Salomon Brothers, an established financial advisor and service provider in New York, represents a client who has identified digital wallets that appear abandoned and therefore may be at risk of an attack by a bad actor at present or in the future. Due to the firm’s privacy policy, Salomon Brothers will not divulge the client’s identity.

The client has taken steps to notify those specific wallet holders. It appears that last week some of those holders heeded a notice placed in their wallets by moving their assets to new wallets.

Our client would not knowingly take any action that would adversely impact the crypto market, and is invested in the success of the future of the cryptocurrency community generally. In fact, by taking this action at his own expense, the client is creating an opportunity for wallet access by digital asset owners who would otherwise have nothing.

There are concerning global security issues presented by abandoned wallets and their holdings. Typically, wallets are abandoned by owners when faced with the intractable situation of a lost or corrupted private key. Consequently, a keyless wallet is nearly worthless.

And, it is understood that there are bad actors who seek to take advantage of this situation. They might include rogue states and  criminal organizations that have far more resources than individual wallet holders. Our client believes this issue must be resolved to eliminate this risk.

The client has no interest in claiming wallets that are not actually abandoned. Those who are notified and have use of the private key can easily signal that the key is not lost, and therefore the wallet is not abandoned, by using the private key to conduct a de minimus transaction, or by moving the contents to a new wallet.  

Those who were notified and did, in fact, lose their private key or otherwise lost access to their wallet, and did not abandon it, can contact the client by sending a message via the form on the notice webpage.

Additionally, our client is establishing a keyless wallet recovery fund for those who lost access to their wallets but can support a valid claim to ownership. Substantial value is expected to be recovered for owners who have lost access to their wallets and can verify ownership. This fund will be administered by Salomon Brothers. Details of the fund will be announced in the coming months. 

Salomon Brothers does not advise on the purchase or sale of virtual currency. 

Salomon's Role

Salomon Brothers is a catalyst for positive change using its financial expertise to customize solutions to major issues.

Salomon Brothers assists clients with services and advises them on how to maximize the value of the digital assets they own, which can include staking and other opportunities. These are often complex decisions with difficult-to-quantify risks. Salomon Brothers assists clients in evaluating and understanding their alternatives. Those who want to engage our services should contact Salomon Brothers via our website.

Those with staking opportunities and other special situations that want to present to us and/or our clients for consideration should contact Salomon Brothers via our website.

To be clear, Salomon Brothers does not advise its clients on the purchase or sale of virtual currency. Salomon Brothers is not a virtual currency exchange, nor a custodian and does not operate any other virtual currency business that may require licensing.