It's probably only a coincidence, but the source code for the Mirai botnet was released over the weekend at the same time these strange connections to the Bitcoin network started.
The Mirai botnet infects Internet of Things devices like security web cameras. It was used to launch the largest DDoS attack seen so far.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/source-code-for-iot-botnet-mirai-released/The source code that powers the Internet of Things (IoT) botnet responsible for launching the historically large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against KrebsOnSecurity last month has been publicly released, virtually guaranteeing that the Internet will soon be flooded with attacks from many new botnets powered by insecure routers, IP cameras, digital video recorders and other easily hackable devices.
The leak of the source code was announced Friday on the English-language hacking community Hackforums. The malware, dubbed Mirai, spreads to vulnerable devices by continuously scanning the Internet for IoT systems protected by factory default or hard-coded usernames and passwords.