Nickolas Goline

To those responsible for the theft of bitcoin from the Liquid Network: Blockstream will not pay a ransom for the return of stolen funds. Taking assets without authorization and withholding their return is a crime, not responsible disclosure. It is not white-hat activity. It is theft. We have engaged in good faith in an effort to secure the return of stolen user funds and protect the broader Bitcoin community. That effort should not be mistaken for acceptance of the actions taken nor of the terms being demanded. We will not be a party to the precedent that open-source software developed for the good of the Bitcoin community should subject its developers to paying a ransom that far exceeds their economic participation. Bitcoin is hard money and can’t be minted without costs, Bitcoin doesn’t haircut users to pay a ransom. To the Bitcoin community: We are fighting for what we believe in, for the users whose funds were taken, and for the principles on which Bitcoin was built. The community has demonstrated incredible resolve with teams of people dedicating their time in support of each other to identify and patch vulnerabilities in each other's products and systems. We are all driven by the mission that Bitcoin is the single best asset, for every person, company, and institution on the planet to invest, use, and build on. The world is a different place with the advancements of AI, and the Bitcoin community has responded with force to combat that threat. Damage has been done, battles have been lost, but on the whole the Bitcoin community is gaining ground in the war with bad actors. We want to thank the community for those efforts, for your support in hardening the network, helping users recover funds, and for your support in our assertion that crime does not deserve rewards. To those holding the stolen bitcoin: There is still an opportunity to resolve this responsibly. The bitcoin can be returned and we can revert to the standard of white-hat principals. However, if the funds are not returned, we will pursue every lawful avenue available to us. We will work with law enforcement, exchanges, service providers, forensic specialists, and other relevant parties to trace and recover the assets and identify those responsible. More importantly, Bitcoin is transparent by design and the community is made up of the most sophisticated engineers, cryptographers, and white-hat hackers globally. Transactions do not disappear, and neither does the evidence they leave behind. We will not pay for the return of stolen property. We will not abandon our users. The Bitcoin community will not stop pursuing the funds. Return the bitcoin.