Specter Links ProveX’s January ETH Inflows to Earlier Heart-Linked Funds

Onchain investigator Specter renewed his claim on Oct. 14 that funds sent through Tornado Cash in 2025 by wallets he links to Richard Heart subsequently entered the ProveX sacrifice campaign in January 2026.

The claim concerns the source of contributions to a campaign that accepted participants’ crypto. In his Jan. 7 analysis, Specter attributed 128,808 $ETH received since Jan. 5 to Tornado Cash withdrawals routed through more than 800 intermediary wallets. That quantity would be worth approximately $424 million at CoinGecko’s Jan. 7 historical $ETH price of $3,291.91. The aggregate and its attribution to earlier Heart-linked deposits have not been independently confirmed.

Ethereum records establish a specific withdrawal route to the address Heart published for ProveX. For participants, the distinction is whether inflows represented new outside contributions or funds returning from earlier campaigns, as Specter alleges. A transfer from a mixer does not, by itself, identify the original depositor or establish that Heart controlled the intermediary.

In his Oct. 14 post, Specter wrote that the funds “were withdrawn in Jan 2026,” referring back to his January analysis.

The Visible Withdrawal Route

An Ethereum transaction shows Tornado Cash’s 100 $ETH pool sending 100 $ETH to an intermediary address beginning `0xf94957` on Jan. 5 at 4:16 p.m. ET. Blockscout’s transaction records show that intermediary subsequently sending 1 $ETH and approximately 99 $ETH to `0xAFa2A89CB43619677d9C72E81f6d4c8a730a1022`.

Heart published that receiving address in his ProveX announcement. He described the sacrifice as a political statement and warned: “You understand what you sacrifice can be sold and you will receive no benefit from it.” The announcement also mentioned a leaderboard, bonuses and the possibility of a free airdrop.

Specter’s broader tracing claim starts with an older address, `0x1B7BAa734C00298b9429b518D621753Bb0f6efF2`. Ethereum records show it receiving 26.57 million USDT on Jan. 26, 2022, from an address Etherscan labels “PulseChain: Sacrifice.” Blockscout records also show a 220 $ETH transfer from that same address that day.

Specter says a further $190 million moved to the older address in March 2022 and that much of the money subsequently entered Tornado Cash. He separately estimated that Heart-linked wallets deposited more than $600 million into the mixer in October 2025. The asserted connection across the mixer remains his inference: mixers obscure the links between deposits and withdrawals.

Separate From the Legal Cases

Specter’s renewed claim came the same day Turkish media reported Heart’s detention in Istanbul, as The Defiant reported. That report concerned an Interpol notice requested by Finland over alleged aggravated tax fraud, not a ruling on the ProveX transfers.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s separate 2023 complaint had alleged that PulseChain proceeds passed through a private wallet, a mixer and intermediaries before funding Heart’s luxury purchases. Those were allegations, not findings of liability.

A federal judge dismissed the SEC complaint in February 2025. On April 21, 2025, the SEC notified the court that it would not file an amended complaint.