According to CryptoPotato, the FBI has allegedly issued subpoenas to participants of the 2022 Bitcoin Core Developer Event to obtain their personal information. The move was revealed by Mike Schmidt, co-founder of Bitcoin non-profit Brink, who said the subpoena was related to allegations that more than 200 Bitcoins were stolen from Bitcoin developer and Ocean Mining Pool co-founder Luke Dashjr.
Schmidt revealed that he received a subpoena from the FBI as part of an investigation into the allegations against Dashjr. The subpoena specifically requested information about attendees of the October 2022 CoreDev event in Atlanta, which took place just before TABConf 2022. The subpoena requested the names, GitHub usernames, and email addresses of the attendees in order to investigate the allegations against Dashjr. Despite the inclusion of a confidentiality clause that expires after a year, Schmidt complied with the request at the direction of legal counsel.
Brink’s co-founder criticized Dashjr for failing to protect his bitcoins. Dashjr’s public disclosure of his bitcoin theft inadvertently exposed the conference’s attendees to FBI scrutiny, resulting in their personal information being leaked to authorities.