Is the US Government Planning to Crash the Market? Bitfinex Hack Investigation Seizes Stolen Funds, Totaling Nearly $1 Billion

Is the US Government Planning to Crash the Market? Bitfinex Hack Investigation Seizes Stolen Funds, Totaling Nearly $1 Billion

Is the US Government Planning to Crash the Market? Bitfinex Hack Investigation Seizes Stolen Funds, Totaling Nearly $1 Billion

According to a report by CoinDesk, the US government transferred nearly $1 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from a cryptocurrency wallet involved in the Bitfinex hack early this morning (29th).

Blockchain data company Arkham Intelligence identified three wallets holding the seized Bitfinex hacker funds, and one of these wallets transferred 1 Bitcoin to an unidentified address at 2 am Taiwan time on Thursday. Approximately half an hour later, the remaining 2,817 BTC in that wallet were also transferred out, with a total value of approximately $173 million.

Shortly after, another wallet containing around 12,300 BTC transferred 0.01 BTC to another unidentified address, and the remaining Bitcoin in that wallet was also transferred out. The value of the transferred coins amounted to approximately $750 million. The combined value of the Bitcoin transferred from these two wallets is approximately $923 million.

The motive behind these transfers is still unclear, and the US Department of Justice did not immediately respond to media inquiries regarding the matter.

According to Arkham’s data, there is another wallet holding approximately 94,600 BTC from the Bitfinex hack, currently valued at around $5.79 billion.

In August 2016, the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex suffered a hack and lost approximately 119,754 BTC. Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, a couple from New York, were implicated in the incident. They allegedly laundered over 94,000 BTC through a series of small and complex transactions across multiple accounts and platforms.

The US authorities arrested the couple in February 2022 and seized the Bitcoin, which was valued at around $54 million at the time of the incident but over $3.6 billion at the time of the seizure. As part of a plea agreement reached with the prosecution, Lichtenstein admitted to conspiracy to launder money, while Morgan admitted to conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Related report: “Foreign media: Amazon is planning to produce a movie related to the 2016 Bitfinex attack”