Soon a tsunami of BTC for Bitfinex? In August 2016are nearly 120,000 bitcoins stolen to the cryptocurrency exchange platform Bitfinex. BTCs that have remained in nature for several years. But since then, those responsible for this theft have ended up being foundas well as a large part of the stolen BTC. The fate of the latter, however, is still in suspense. But for the American government, this Bitcoin treasure should be returned at Bitfinex.
- In 2022, the US government seized 94,643 bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex in 2016, and it plans to return them to the exchange.
- Bitfinex could sell a large portion of these bitcoins to buy back the LEO tokens issued after the hack.
More than 94,600 bitcoins seized from hacker Ilya Lichtenstein still held by the USA
In 2016, the piracy of the crypto-stock market Bitfinex caused the loss of 119 754 bitcoinswhose value was then 72 millions the dollars. Au Bitcoin price at the time of writing (around $99,000 per BTC), this heist would be equivalent today to 11.9 billion the dollars.
According to a court document filed in the District of Columbia Court on January 14, 2025, the United States government would like a large part of these bitcoins come back at Bitfinex.
And the US authorities hold the cards (or rather the bitcoins) in this matter. Indeed, following the arrest of hacker Ilya Lichtensteina total of 94 643 bitcoins have been seized by American justice on January 31, 2022. That is to say almost 9.4 billion the dollars Today.
What will the Bitfinex exchange do with these billions of $ in Bitcoin? Resell them to buy back LEO tokens?
Following its hack, the Bitfinex platform was on the edge of the abyss. This sister company of Tether (USDT stablecoin) within the group iFinex found a solution to survive to issue the LEO token in 2019 (from its full name UNUS SED LEO).
-These LEO tokens, although useful (utility tokens), were like a kind ofdebt issuance of the platform towards its users. And they were normally intended to be burn (burned/destroyed) if the bitcoins stolen during the hack returned to Bitfinex. And it would therefore seem that this restitution is very topical, to return to the legal document cited above:
“(…) This voluntary restitution [des bitcoins volés] should include all assets seized in the Bitfinex Hack Wallet and, (…) these assets should be returned to Bitfinex as restitution in kind. (…) »
And hacker Ilya Lichtenstein was sentenced to 5 years in prison in November 2024, closing this aspect of the case, the fate of the stolen and then seized bitcoins is still to be written. If Bitfinex keeps the promise made to its users and owners of LEO, the crypto-stock exchange should sell part of the Bitcoin which will be returned to him by the US authorities, in order to buy back the LEO tokens. However, the latter are today valued at the level of $8.9 billion.
