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The U.S. government has returned 27.66270285 BTC to the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex after the hack that the exchange experienced in 2016. The information was released by Bitfinex in a recent blog post. It was possible to receive these funds back as the result of U.S. law enforcement efforts.
Bitfinex Receives Over 27 BTC From the 2016 Hack
The cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex was able to receive 27.7 BTC after a security breach that affected the platform in August 2016. After the attack, the company has been collaborating with international law enforcement agencies to provide intelligence and assist with different investigations. These funds will be converted to USD and paid to RRT (Recovery Right Token) holders.
The Chief Financial Officer at Bitfinex, Giancarlo Devasini, commented about it:
“We will continue to assist law enforcement with their inquiries, and also once again extend an open invitation to the hackers, or anyone harbouring information pertaining to the breach, to make contact in whichever medium they feel most secure with, to finally resolve the situation in a mutually beneficial manner.”
The exchange lost 119,756 Bitcoin that was valued at roughly $66 million. Currently, these funds would be equal to almost $460 million. The exchange explained using its social media channels that they were affected by a hack. After this situation, the prices dropped close to 20%.
After this attack, Bitfinex took a unique approach. The exchange generalized the losses across all the accounts and credited the customers affected BFX tokens at a ratio of 1 BFX to 1 dollar lost. In just eight months after the hack, Bitfinex repaid the losses. The exchange has also created the Recovery Right Token (RRT) for BFX holders.
“Over two years following the hack of the Bitfinex platform, today we see the results of a clear and robust response strategy and the efforts of the U.S. government,” mentioned Giancarlo Devasini. “It gives us great pleasure to be able to reimburse our traders that were loyal to us and believed in us at a very difficult time.”
According to Larry Cermak, head analyst at The Block, the funds retrieved is roughly 0.023% of the total stolen proceeds. That means that close to $100,000 have been recovered of the $70 million, which is better than nothing.
119,756 BTC was stolen during the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Bitfinex has recovered 27.7 BTC, which is roughly 0.023% of the total stolen proceeds. Back then, it was nearly $70M while $100k was recovered. I suppose it's better than nothing but some context is needed. https://t.co/E68NIpGKjx
— Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) February 25, 2019
There have been several cryptocurrency exchanges hacked. Cryptopia is one of them. Back in January, Cryptopia lost more than $2.4 million in users’ funds after attackers were able to empty their hardware wallets.
At the time of writing this article, Bitfinex is the 15th largest digital asset exchange in the cryptocurrency market. In the last 24 hours, the platform processed $479 million in trading volume.