Untraceable Bitcoin ransoms (“It’s a feature, not a bug . . .”)

Photo above - the FBI won't confirm if this is the actual ransom note sent to TMZ on Monday . . .

I hope 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie is returned safe. But as of this morning, she’s still missing. A multi-million-dollar ransom demand was delivered to a TV station, but not the same one where Nancy’s daughter Savannah Guthrie works. (see link below).

In scripted TV kidnappings, the perps always say to leave the money in a shoebox or a hollow tree. Nancy's kidnappers want the money in Bitcoin, deposited in someone’s crypto wallet. Investigators have verified that the Bitcoin address is real.

This sounds inept – like demanding that relatives deposit a ransom check in a Chase Manhattan checking account. Someone would suggest: "let’s just take the account owner of record into custody and hear what they have to say about this . . . " With Bitcoin, no can do. Accounts are secret.

Kidnapping demands, hacking demands, terrorist funding, arms sales, child trafficking . . . Bitcoin is the go-to currency for crimes like this. I tried to reach out to Satoshi Nakamoto – Bitcoin’s alleged creator - for comment, to ask if ransoms were a feature or a bug. Then I found out Satoshi either doesn’t exist, or if he does, he's as invisible as all those Bitcoin addresses.

Coinbase is as close as you can get to an “owner of record” for the crypto-pocalypse. It processes trillions in Bitcoin transactions a year, and makes billions in profits. They also claim they don’t know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or where his billion-dollar stash of Bitcoin is walleted. Stop laughing. This is all completely true, and Nancy Guthrie is still missing. It's not funny.

This is worse than a numbered Swiss bank account, no?

All this was supposed to be fixed when “The Genius Act” was signed into law last year. But it wasn’t. Coinbase and it’s unindicted co-conspirators are now helping draft the 2026 Clarity Act to help clear things up. This how corporate America works – industries draft the regulations they promise to live by.

It should surprise no one that neither the Genius or Clarity act provide for tracing ransom demands. The Clarity act goes one step worse – it would prevent crypto from being regulated by the SEC, like ordinary shares of stock. The corporate authors want crypto be a generic commodity, like wheat or copper. But crypto companies DO want to pay interest and dividends on crypto, like stock shares get. Coinbase has said they’d rather have “no legislation at all”, rather than the wrong bill.

Uh huh, I totally get it. There’s a lot of corporations out there which would rejoice if there was no legislation restricting what they can pull.

We wouldn’t tolerate Nancy Guthrie being kidnapped for millions, and a money center bank agreeing to handle the ransom clandestinely. Why should crypto get a free pass? Are ransoms, hacking and all the other stuff Bitcoin is used for now the most important part of our financial system?

I’m just askin’ . . .



‘Unverified Ransom Note’ for Savannah Guthrie’s Missing Mom Nancy Sent to TMZ: Contained Demands for ‘a Substantial Sum of Money’

Landmark crypto bill on knife’s edge as Coinbase CEO pulls support ahead of key Senate vote | Fortune

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/unverified-ransom-note-savannah-guthrie-205511312.html

https://fortune.com/2026/01/14/crypto-bill-coinbase-legislation-clarity-market-structure-stablecoins-banking-markup/