Stolen Bitfinex Funds Moved to New Address
According to multiple tweets by Whale_alert.io, the cryptocurrency transaction tracker, a part of the Bitcoin (BTC) that had been stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016 was moved from the hackers’ wallets to a new, but unknown address on June 7.
Mysterious Movements
A part of the Bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex was mysteriously moved from the hackers’ wallets to a new address in a serious of transfers that began at 06:08 UTC. A total of six transactions were recorded, totaling 185 BTC, which is currently worth about $1.5 million at the time of writing.
Whale_Alert posted the list of transactions. The first was for 30.66757155 BTC (~$242,498). The following five transactions were for 19.677839770000002 BTC (~$155, 599), 80.93787872 BTC (~$640,002), 17.0291308 BTC (~$134,655) and 24.26178489 BTC (~$191,846). The transactions took place throughout the day, with the sixth – and final one – being carried out at 19:47 UTC.
This total amount is about 0.15% of the total of 120,000 BTC that had been stolen from Bitfinex in 2016. At that time, the value of the BTC stolen was $72 million, however, today, it would be worth about $973 million.
This theft was the largest recorded loss of BTC by a crypto exchange since the Mt. Gox hack in 2014, when about $350 million worth of BTC had been stolen. Earlier this year in February, the United States law enforcement agencies had been able to retrieve 27.66270285 BTC (~$219,745.60) from the Bitfinex theft.
Exchange Denies Involvement
Hard Fork, the online crypto news publication, speculated that this mysterious movement of Bitfinex’s stolen funds was connected to the exchange’s recently launched native cryptocurrency, Leo Coin. This new coin allows for stolen funds to be returned anonymously.
However, Bitfinex’s spokesperson, Anneka Dew stated that the cryptocurrency exchange had nothing to do with the transfer of these stolen funds. She stated that these transactions were not tied to the procedure that had been outlined in white paper for UNUS SED LEO.
Leo coin’s white paper had been released on May 08 this year, and it stated that Bitfinex continued to implement numerous strategies to recover the funds that were stolen in 2016.
Helping Hide Funds’ Ultimate Destination
Considering that the BTC wallets are anonymous in nature, these transactions are now the only evidence of the hackers’ activities post the theft. They could be used for forensic analysis to attempt tracing the funds, but most likely they will actually result in money laundering activities that will cover the trail to the BTCs’ final destination.