Anonymous burns 107 Bitcoin across five time-locked transactions

📅 May 25, 2026 | 📈 3 min read 🔥 On-chain | Bitcoin | Quantum

On May 25, 2026, an anonymous Bitcoin holder sent 107.13 BTC (approximately $8.5 million) to a known unspendable address using five coordinated time-locked transactions. The funds are now permanently irretrievable. Blockstream CEO Adam Back called the incident an "accidental quantum bounty."

        💰 Destination address: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 — a P2PKH address with no known private key. Any Bitcoin sent here is destroyed forever.
    

Five transactions, one locktime

All five transactions were executed on May 25, 2026 at 21:59 UTC with the same locktime parameter, set to trigger at block height 950,958. The source wallets were created on April 10, 2014 and had remained dormant until this event.

Amount (BTC)	Transaction ID (hash)
20.00994487	88d53e6746369d7470e5bd57a82efd5dd2cbd49b585bfa9f52a44a26f2d0133d
1.41584421	a5df6016a11f5eff65c7bbb3742584a7c5dc9815b03363e1783d6a40bfda8c0d
36.78748282	ae1a4e36b9fb0114096cf48dbf492f80b64c5b5bf90390bd95b903973e611cee
28.88997433	c0ede983636fcf6cddaa83bf96d755c24ade3f18b375decdfff5ab27b7cca0b6
20.02697328	ea6d6a236172d391bc247310114ff3b5f78b1091aa9a297328500bd7d56c1b1c

107.13 BTC

Total destroyed

Time-locked transactions

April 10, 2014

Source wallets created

The burn address already held ~700 BTC

The destination address was not empty before this event. Blockchain data shows it already contained approximately 700 BTC from previous burns. After the May 25 transactions, the total balance increased to 807.24 BTC (over $60 million at current prices).

Adam Back: "Accidental quantum bounty"

Blockstream CEO Adam Back (@adam3us) labeled the incident an "accidental quantum bounty" on X, drawing immediate attention across the crypto community.

The address's public key is mathematically derivable from its structure. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could — in theory — compute the corresponding private key and claim those funds. No such computer exists today, but the debate over quantum preparedness continues.

Deliberate destruction, not an error

The coordinated timing, identical locktime, shared wallet creation date, and the two-minute execution window all point to a premeditated act rather than an accident. No explanation has surfaced regarding the motive — whether ideological, technical, or simply a long-term holder choosing destruction over liquidation.

        🔍 Key observation: The five source wallets were all created on the same date (April 10, 2014) and remained dormant for over 12 years before this coordinated burn.
    

Key facts summary

Date of burn: May 25, 2026 (21:59 UTC)
Total BTC destroyed: 107.13 BTC (~$8.5 million)
Destination address: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 (unspendable null address)
Number of transactions: 5
Locktime: Block height 950,958 (identical across all five)
Source wallets created: April 10, 2014
Total at burn address after event: 807.24 BTC (>$60 million)
Quantum angle: Adam Back calls it an "accidental quantum bounty" — funds could be claimable by a future quantum computer