US Treasury blacklisted a non-existent ETH address in connection with alleged Russian election interference

Earlier today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury updated its Specially Designated Nationals List, adding several individuals and a number of cryptocurrency addresses. One of the individuals added was Artem Mikhaylovich Lifshits — a Russian national, accused of interfering in the U.S. elections. 

In addition to disclosing his personal information, the site lists a number of cryptocurrency addresses that he allegedly controls. One of the Ethereum addresses, found at 0xa7e5d5a720f06526557c513402f2e6b5fa20b00, does not seem to exist, however.

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury.

There was likely a mixup somewhere in the chain of command and the Treasury meant to blacklist 0xA7e5d5A720f06526557c513402f2e6B5fA20b008 instead.

Another vague possibility is that Russian hackers somehow acquired early access to wallets used by ETH 2.0. Cointelegraph has reached out to Vitalik Buterin for comment, but he was either unavailable or we had the wrong address.