Onchain investigator ZachXBT said he may automatically reject future requests from crypto victims in seven jurisdictions.

The named jurisdictions were Canada, the UK, India, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria and Bangladesh. ZachXBT reportedly based the proposed restrictions on his personal experiences handling cases connected to victims in those locations.

He also plans to restrict access to some support services through an upcoming website. However, no website address, launch date or complete access policy had been published when this report was prepared.

ZachXBT may filter cases by victim location

ZachXBT reportedly described the named jurisdictions as producing some of his worst case-handling experiences. He said he would “likely automatically reject” future assistance requests originating from those regions.

The remark describes a possible future policy rather than an active prohibition. There is no evidence that he has already blocked every request from the seven jurisdictions or stopped working on cases previously submitted by their residents.

“Likely automatically reject” remains a stated intention. ZachXBT has not published final eligibility rules or confirmed that every applicant from the named jurisdictions will be refused.

The list reflects ZachXBT’s personal assessment. It does not come from a government agency, court or international sanctions authority. The remarks also did not provide case data showing how many requests he received from each country or why individual cases produced poor outcomes.

Planned website will restrict some regional access

ZachXBT said his forthcoming website would prevent users in some jurisdictions he considers “low quality” from accessing crypto support services. The wording suggests that the platform could use regional eligibility controls when accepting investigation requests.

“Low quality” is ZachXBT’s subjective description. No published methodology, performance data or independent assessment currently supports that classification.

Important operating details remain unavailable. ZachXBT has not disclosed which services the website will provide, whether restrictions will depend on residency or internet location, or whether applicants can challenge an incorrect classification.

He also has not said whether exceptions will apply to large thefts, coordinated attacks or cases involving victims across several countries. No fee model, privacy policy or terms of service have been released publicly.

The lack of details prevents confirmation that all seven named jurisdictions will be blocked at launch. The policy could change before the website becomes operational.

Independent investigators fill a recovery gap

ZachXBT regularly traces funds stolen through phishing, wallet compromises and exchange-related scams. His work can identify transaction paths, deposit addresses and links between wallets. Such findings may help exchanges or authorities assess a victim’s report, but an investigator cannot independently freeze or return assets.

That limitation matters because recovery frequently requires cooperation from centralized exchanges, stablecoin issuers and law enforcement agencies. Blockchain tracing can show where assets moved, but control over a destination wallet or exchange account remains with its operator.

In one earlier investigation, ZachXBT estimated that Coinbase users lost at least $65 million through social-engineering scams during two months. Coinbase did not confirm that estimate.

More recently, his analysis helped trace funds after a fake Ledger application stole $9.5 million from more than 50 reported victims. The incident showed how individual researchers can become an informal point of contact after large thefts.

Victims still have official reporting routes

The proposed restrictions would apply to ZachXBT’s private assistance, not to official reporting channels. Victims can still contact local police, national fraud-reporting agencies, exchanges, wallet providers and relevant financial regulators.

They may also submit transaction hashes, wallet addresses and communications from suspected scammers to blockchain analytics companies. Prompt reporting can matter when stolen assets reach a centralized service capable of restricting an account.

The next verified development will be the publication of ZachXBT’s website and its written eligibility policy. Those materials should clarify which countries are restricted, what services remain available and whether current cases will continue.

Until then, the comments should not be presented as a completed ban. They indicate that ZachXBT is considering location-based limits after what he described as poor personal experiences handling cases from the seven jurisdictions.

Robert Kiyosaki renewed his call to buy Bitcoin on Aug. 22, arguing that financially educated investors use scarce assets to protect their wealth from inflation and a weakening U.S. dollar.

The “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author recommended Bitcoin, gold, silver and selected real estate. He claimed the Treasury’s decision to expand long-dated bond buybacks represented another round of quantitative easing and the creation of “fake dollars.”

That description does not match the Treasury announcement. The buyback program is a debt-management operation, while quantitative easing is a monetary-policy tool conducted by the Federal Reserve.

Kiyosaki links Bitcoin to financial education

Kiyosaki argued that knowledgeable investors acquire assets capable of appreciating while people holding cash lose purchasing power. He told followers “don’t be a loser” and repeated his view that financial ignorance carries a greater cost than education.

His statements reflect an investment opinion, not verified evidence that people buying Bitcoin are more financially educated than those who avoid it. Investors may hold cash for liquidity, emergency expenses or short-term obligations rather than as a long-term inflation hedge.

Kiyosaki has also acknowledged that BTC can produce losses when investors buy during periods of market excitement. As crypto.news previously reported, he warned against buying assets solely because of hype during Bitcoin’s May correction.

That earlier warning adds context to his latest message. Financial education may help investors assess risk, but it does not remove BTC’s price volatility or guarantee positive returns.

Treasury buybacks are not quantitative easing

The U.S. Treasury announced on Aug. 19 that it would increase liquidity-support buybacks for nominal securities in the 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year maturity sectors.

The maximum will rise from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation beginning Sept. 9, according to the Treasury. The increased limit will remain in place through Nov. 4, when officials plan to provide more information during the next quarterly refunding.

Treasury said the change was intended to support liquidity in longer-dated securities. It did not describe the program as quantitative easing or announce the creation of new currency.

The Federal Reserve defines quantitative easing as large-scale asset purchases used as a monetary-policy tool. Those purchases expand the central bank’s securities holdings and can increase reserve balances. Treasury buybacks instead replace selected outstanding debt through the government’s established financing operations.

Kiyosaki’s characterization of the action as “printing fake $” is therefore political and rhetorical, not a technical description of the program.

Bitcoin rallied as bond yields and the dollar weakened

Bitcoin traded near $76,000 on Aug. 23 after approaching $79,500 two days earlier. The cryptocurrency gained more than 20% over the week before retreating from the local high.

The rally followed the Treasury announcement, falling long-term bond yields and a weaker U.S. dollar. Forced short liquidations accelerated the initial move, while U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds later added stronger evidence of direct demand.

The funds recorded approximately $1.92 billion in net inflows across five sessions. In related coverage, crypto.news found that ETF demand joined the short-covering rally after Bitcoin broke above $70,000.

The timing supports a connection between market liquidity expectations and Bitcoin’s rally. It does not prove Kiyosaki’s broader claim that Treasury operations will produce inflation or permanently weaken the dollar.

Kiyosaki’s forecasts require caution

Kiyosaki has repeatedly issued aggressive Bitcoin targets. In June 2024, he said BTC would reach $350,000 by Aug. 25 of that year. He described the figure as a “target, a dream, and a wish.” The forecast did not materialize.

He later proposed targets of $500,000 and $1 million with different deadlines. Those projections remain speculative and are not supported by a disclosed valuation model.

Kiyosaki has also sold BTC while remaining publicly bullish. In November 2025, he sold $2.25 million in Bitcoin at approximately $90,000 per coin and directed the proceeds toward surgery centers and a billboard business.

BTC’s next market test is whether spot demand can support prices after the short squeeze ends. Treasury’s higher buyback limits begin Sept. 9, providing a defined date for assessing their effect on long-term yields and broader risk markets.

Bitcoin traded near $76,600 on Aug. 23 after reaching $79,500 two days earlier, prompting claims that veteran trader Peter Brandt’s 58,000–62,000 forecast was wrong.

The historical price record shows otherwise. Brandt issued the forecast in January when Bitcoin traded near $92,400. Bitcoin later entered his stated range and fell to approximately $57,717 on July 1. It subsequently spent weeks near or slightly above the target zone before beginning its latest recovery.

The rally therefore does not invalidate the completed forecast. It shows that market conditions changed after Bitcoin reached the area Brandt identified.

Bitcoin reached Brandt’s target months after his call

Brandt wrote on Jan. 19 that “$58K to $62K is where I think it is going.” He reportedly expected the move within two weeks, although he also acknowledged that his assessment could be wrong.

Bitcoin did not meet that short timetable. However, the price eventually reached the forecast range during the 2026 downturn. Fortune recorded Bitcoin at $58,278 on July 1, while other market data showed an intraday low near $57,717.

The difference between price and timing matters when assessing the forecast. Brandt correctly identified a later trading zone, but the projected two-week horizon was too short. Calling the entire forecast wrong because Bitcoin now trades above $76,000 ignores the intervening decline.

As crypto.news previously reported, Brandt’s January downside target was later reached before he began identifying evidence of a possible market bottom.

Brandt changed position after Bitcoin completed its pattern

Brandt did not remain committed to the bearish position after the chart structure changed. He said BTC’s prolonged inverse head-and-shoulders pattern initially had a 60% probability of resolving downward because the wider trend remained weak.

The completion of the pattern changed his view. Brandt said he “bought the breakout for better or worse” after BTC moved above the neckline. The quotation reflects a trading decision, not a guarantee that the rally will continue.

His updated position illustrates how technical traders often work. A forecast applies while its underlying pattern and price conditions remain valid. A confirmed breakout can invalidate the next bearish setup even when an earlier downside target was achieved.

Brandt also pointed to what he calls “price walls,” a decades-old charting method that identifies areas where tightly grouped price bars may later act as support or resistance. He did not provide a guaranteed upside target in the latest post.

Short liquidations and ETF demand accelerated Bitcoin’s rally

The crypto rose from approximately $62,679 on Aug. 17 to $79,500 on Aug. 21, a gain of nearly 27% from the weekly low. It later retreated toward $76,600 but remained up more than 20% over seven days.

Forced short covering helped drive the early part of the move. Traders holding leveraged bearish positions had to buy BTC when prices crossed their liquidation levels, adding demand during the breakout.

However, the rally was not based entirely on derivatives. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $606 million in net inflows on Aug. 20, following approximately $517 million the previous day. Five-session inflows reached about $1.92 billion.

In related coverage, crypto.news reported that the combination of short liquidations and spot ETF demand produced one of the market’s largest squeeze events since 2021.

The ETF inflows provide evidence of spot demand alongside forced derivatives buying. Continued inflows would offer stronger support for the rally than short covering alone.

Treasury action changed the macro backdrop

The reversal also followed a change in U.S. bond-market conditions. On Aug. 19, the U.S. Treasury announced that it would at least double the maximum size of liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated government securities.

The current maximum of $2 billion per operation will increase to at least $4 billion beginning Sept. 9, according to the Treasury. The operations cover the 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year sectors.

Long-term Treasury yields declined after the announcement, while the U.S. dollar weakened. Bitcoin, gold and other scarce assets rallied as traders responded to the change in liquidity conditions.

Bitcoin’s next test is whether it can reclaim and hold $79,500 before challenging $80,000. Failure to maintain the breakout could return attention to the low-$70,000 region and the completed pattern’s neckline.

Brandt’s January price target was reached, but his original timing was not. His later bearish view also changed after the market produced a confirmed bullish breakout. Those are separate forecasts and should not be combined into a claim that the $58,000 call failed.

An unidentified Bitcoin user embedded a 255-byte message in block 963,629 on Aug. 22, announcing a wallet puzzle whose private-key material was allegedly derived from Satoshi Nakamoto’s Genesis Block.

Galaxy Research identified the transaction on Aug. 23. Independent block data confirms that Foundry USA mined block 963,629 at approximately 19:45 UTC on Aug. 22. The block remains part of Bitcoin’s confirmed transaction history.

The message does not reveal the creator’s identity, derivation formula or complete solution. No verified evidence available at publication time showed that anyone had deciphered the puzzle or moved its advertised reward.

Bitcoin puzzle message describes deliberately weak entropy

The transaction contains a human-readable message placed in an OP_RETURN output. Its author said:

“I created a Bitcoin puzzle using information contained in the Genesis Block created by Satoshi to generate the wallet.”

The creator added that the wallet’s entropy was “extremely low” and claimed no private backup was necessary because “everything I needed was already in the Genesis Block.” These are claims from the unidentified author and do not independently reveal how the wallet was generated.

Entropy refers to the randomness used when creating private keys. A secure wallet draws from a sufficiently large and unpredictable set of possible values. A wallet generated from well-known public data can become vulnerable if an attacker can reproduce the exact selection, ordering and transformation process.

Block 963,629 permanently records the challenge

The transaction was 500 bytes and paid a miner fee of 250 satoshis. Its fee rate was 0.60 satoshis per virtual byte, making the on-chain message inexpensive to publish.

The 255-byte payload represented more than half the transaction’s raw size. Galaxy Research therefore characterized it as an “oversized OP_RETURN.” The description refers to its unusual size compared with ordinary data outputs, not a breach of Bitcoin’s consensus rules.

OP_RETURN allows users to create provably unspendable outputs carrying arbitrary information. In related coverage, crypto.news previously explained how users have embedded permanent messages in blockchain transactions, including tributes, political statements and timestamped records.

Once confirmed, the puzzle text became part of Bitcoin’s transaction history. However, embedding a claim on-chain proves that the message existed by that time. It does not prove that every statement inside it is accurate.

Genesis Block offers several possible inputs

Satoshi mined Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, also called block zero, on Jan. 3, 2009. Its hash is 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f.

The block also contains a timestamp, nonce, Merkle root, public key and the well-known newspaper headline: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” Any of those values could form part of the puzzle’s key-generation process.

Blockstream’s technical reference lists the Genesis Block’s timestamp as 1231006505 and its nonce as 2083236893. The public availability of these values means solvers can reproduce them, but they still need to identify which information the creator selected and how it was processed.

The puzzle should not be confused with the Genesis Block’s original 50 BTC subsidy. Those coins are unspendable because the original Bitcoin implementation did not add that coinbase transaction to the spendable output set.

Solvers still need the missing derivation method

The next verifiable development would be an outgoing transaction signed by the puzzle wallet’s private key. Such a movement could show that someone derived the correct key, although an apparent solution could also come from the original creator.

Galaxy Research had not identified the author or published a verified solution when it disclosed the transaction. The on-chain message also does not establish that the creator recovered forgotten Satoshi code, as the original headline suggested.

Until a valid spend or signed proof appears, the event remains a newly published Bitcoin puzzle built around public Genesis Block data, not a deciphered secret from Satoshi Nakamoto.