Blockstream's Adam Back Under Fire Amid Hacks and Controversy

Adam Back, a British cryptographer and co-founder of Blockstream, is making headlines again as several businesses linked to him face scrutiny. Back has denied being the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Blockstream is a company that develops technology and infrastructure for Bitcoin.

Back co-founded Blockstream in 2014 to develop infrastructure around Bitcoin and digital assets. The company later launched a Bitcoin mining business, which was subsequently spun off as Blockstream focused on Bitcoin infrastructure technology.

Blockstream is also behind Liquid, a Bitcoin-linked sidechain that launched in 2018. Liquid uses a federation of functionary nodes to operate the sidechain, with at least 11 required to accept a block. In September 2026, an attacker exploited a vulnerability in Elements' rangeproof verification cache, resulting in the creation of about 4,000 unbacked LBTC.

The attacker then moved the unbacked LBTC through Liquid's standard peg-out process, resulting in a withdrawal of about 4,000 BTC from the Liquid reserve. Blockstream coordinated a halt of Liquid's bridge nodes and deployed an emergency patch. The attacker later returned 3,400 BTC, leaving about 602 BTC outstanding.

Back's name has also been associated with BSTR Holdings, a proposed Bitcoin treasury company that planned to accumulate $4 billion worth of Bitcoin. The company had planned to go public through a transaction involving a blank-cheque company associated with Cantor Fitzgerald. The transaction was later terminated, with Cantor saying BSTR owed the blank-cheque company $15 million.