Hackers move £2.6bn of Bitcoin stolen in 2016 Bitfinex attack
Billions of pounds worth of Bitcoin, stolen during a 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex, have been moved by attackers.
This morning, Twitter account Whale Alert spotted transactions containing as much as 10,000 BTC ($383m) each being moved from the hackers’ account to an unknown wallet during Asian trading hours. According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, which has been mapping the funds stolen during the hack, a total of 94,643 BTC (£2.6bn) has been transferred today.
In August 2016 crypto exchange Bitfinex was the victim of a high profile hack which saw the exchange lose 119,756 BTC of user funds, worth £53m at the time, but now valued at over £3.4bn. The assets transferred today represent just over 79 per cent of the total BTC lost.
“So far this morning, 94,643.29 BTC ($3.55bn) have been moved in 23 transactions, from a wallet associated with a theft from Bitfinex in 2016, to a new address,” confirmed Tom Robinson, chief scientist at Elliptic.
Although large amounts of money are being moved, Elliptic said it is unlikely that the funds will be cashed in for fiat, with just four per cent of the stolen assets withdrawn by the hackers to date. The majority of the stolen assets have been blacklisted and therefore cannot be swapped on a centralised exchange.
“It’s unlikely that these funds will be cashed out any time soon,” Robinson added. “Funds from this hack have been slowly laundered for over five years now. Cashing-out large volumes over a short period of time would draw unwanted attention.”
While hackers have been thwarted from withdrawing stolen assets to date, crypto market’s recent bull run has prompted plenty of movement between asset addresses. Around $100m worth of bitcoin was moved in November 2020 while in April 2021, a further $774m worth of coins was shifted.
In comments to City PM, hacked exchange Bitfinex said the firm “continues to work globally with law enforcement agencies, digital token exchanges and wallet providers to recover the bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack.”
The high profile hack is not the only controversy to have cast a shadow over Bitfinex. In February 2021, the crypto exchange agreed to jointly pay $18.5m with Tether as part of a settlement with the New York attorney general’s office, which accused the firms of covering up client losses totalling $850m.
Crime remains a widespread problem in the digital asset space with an estimated £10bn lost to crypto scams, hacks and theft in 2021.
Read more: Bitcoin price stays flat following outage at Bitfinex exchange and huge value fall on Tuesday