With the recent pump in price also increases the amount Hacker interest in taking new victims to target. What about “hacker adjacent” or “hacker capitalist” what do we do when organizations capitalize on a situation brought about by a hack to make extraordinary sums of money?… Coin Telegraph reported on the matter “On Feb. 1, there were movements of around $2.5 billion from the 2016 Bitfinex hack wallets.” Cointelegraph reported that close to “90,000 Bitcoins were consolidated into one wallet address. More than a week later, the hackers were caught.”
The report continued: “The United States Department of Justice seized $3.6 billion in crypto and arrested two suspects connected to the 2016 hack. Alleged hackers Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were apprehended after federal authorities exercised their ability to “follow the money through the blockchain” according to the DoJ.”
Here is the interesting bit. Bitfinex gave its users who were hacked their BTC equivalent in cash over a 5 and a half year period. So let us assume you had 1,000 bucks worth of BTC stolen in 2016. Bitfinex paid you back $1,000 over the course of 5.5 years… yet the BTC exponentially increased in value during that same time!
Twitter user Ran NeuNer said it best in the following tweet:
“The Bitfinex hack was the best trade ever made. 119,000 Bitcoin was stolen in 2017. Value $76m. Bitfinex repaid the victims the USD equivalent ($76m)over time through a recovery token. Bitfinex get $3.6bn 5,5 years later. Borrow $76m, repay it slowly , get $3,6bn. 5,5 years.”
We agree entirely… What a great trade for Bitfinex and a raw deal for its users.