LIQUID’S RESERVE IS BACK TO 1:1 — BLOCKSTREAM PAID THE 600 BITCOIN, A BOARD MEMBER SAYS — THE ATTACKER STILL HOLDS 598.5 UNSPENT
On November 2, 2026, two deposits closed the hole in Liquid’s reserve: 300 bitcoin in block 974,299 at 20:47 UTC and 250 in block 974,307 at 22:04 UTC. A last 0.0001 at 23:00 UTC covered the fee dust. At block 974,384, liquid.network shows 4,270.53644045 bitcoin held against 4,270.53643993 L-BTC issued, a surplus of 52 satoshis. The Liquid Federation’s post at 00:03 UTC on November 3 says 1:1 backing is back. It thanks the community. It doesn’t say who paid.
Samson Mow does. The Block calls him a federation board member and former Blockstream executive, and quotes him: “As stated many times, Blockstream.” Asked on X how it was done, he wrote, “Blockstream has BTC. Blockstream moves BTC into wallet. Plus a bunch of legal and bureaucratic things, but you get the idea.” That is the whole description of a bill of 600 bitcoin. I can’t tell from it whether this is a gift, a loan or something with strings. The four deposits since October 27 total 602.53048101 bitcoin, and all of them trace within a few hops to one address, 1Kr6QSydW9bFQG1mXiPNNu6WpJGmUa9i1g, which Whale Alert labels Bitfinex. That fits coins taken off an exchange. It doesn’t show whose they were.
In September, Blockstream refused the attacker’s demand for a 10% bounty. “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,” it said, quoted by The Block. It kept that line. The attacker got nothing new, and bc1ql4mfu6aundtkksxklfajs2h3t9nzcd6gyqjlte still holds 598.50468505 bitcoin at block 974,389. But the loss didn’t go away. It moved to whoever funded those deposits, and if Mow is right, that is Blockstream, the company that refused to pay the attacker.
Holders get backing. They don’t yet get a clear exit. Blockstream’s explorer shows total peg-outs of 14,142.79839199 bitcoin, the same figure this desk read on October 11. The Block says some semi-automated peg-outs have resumed, and that the federation didn’t say whether the remaining limits are gone. Swaps through providers are how people leave. The federation promises governance changes “in the coming weeks.” The balance sheet is square. The terms aren’t public. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $77,507.