The United States government has successfully transferred $922 million worth of Bitcoin from two cryptocurrency wallets that held funds seized from Bitfinex back in 2016.
This significant transfer coincided with Bitcoin’s surge to over $60,000 for the first time in over two years on February 28. Within 24 hours leading up to 9:45 pm UTC, Bitcoin rose by 5.52% and reached a trading price of $62,507. In fact, this leading cryptocurrency has experienced a growth of over 20% in the past week.
The first test transfer, valued at only 1 Bitcoin (equivalent to $60,200 during the transfer), took place at 3:39 pm on February 28. Shortly after, the U.S. government-labeled wallet initiated a second transaction worth 2,817 Bitcoin ($172.74 million), followed by a third transaction worth 0.01 Bitcoin ($613.35), and a fourth transaction worth 12,267 Bitcoin ($748.46 million), according to data from Arkham Intelligence.
These transfers were made possible because the government had seized these funds in 2016 after Bitfinex fell victim to a hack that resulted in the loss of approximately 119,754 BTC, which is now worth over $7.4 billion.
Interestingly, these transfers occurred just a day after Ilya Lichtenstein, the hacker responsible for stealing and laundering more than $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange, appeared in a Washington court and explained the details of this massive heist. According to a report by Bloomberg, Lichtenstein revealed that he had access to Bitfinex’s systems for several months and also hacked individual accounts at other exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken.
Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan (also known as Razzlekhan), were arrested in February 2022. At that time, the U.S. government accused them of conspiring to launder $4.5 billion in hacked Bitcoin, leading to the largest financial seizure in history, where the government confiscated $3.6 billion. Furthermore, an additional $475 million worth of Bitcoin was seized on August 3, 2022.
In August 2023, Lichtenstein and his wife pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in connection with the Bitfinex hack.
It is worth noting that Amazon is reportedly in the process of creating a movie about the Bitfinex money launderers. The script is said to be inspired by a 2022 article published in The New York Times, which dubbed the couple as “Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde.”
Related: What is the reason behind the increase in Bitcoin’s price today?