Bitfinex hackers move more than $27 million tied to 2016 attack

The Block • July 27, 2020, 2:28PM EDT
UPDATED: July 27, 2020, 2:29PM EDT
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Whale Alert, a Twitter-based tracker of large cryptocurrency transactions, reported nine transfers of funds tied to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.

Bitfinex was hacked in August 2016, and the security breach resulted in the theft of almost 120,000 BTC — an amount valued at $72 million at then-current prices. The exchange later moved to socialize that loss among its user base and create a token to as a means to reimburse those affected. Bitfinex bought back the last of the so-called BFX tokens in April 2017.

Since the hack, blockchain sleuths have tracked the movement of the stolen coins. On Monday, four Whale Alert pings were posted at 12:41 p.m. ET after a combined 531.93 BTC (approximately $5.76 million) was transferred.

Over an hour later, at 1:49 p.m. ET, Whale Alert posted five more alerts for transactions totaling 2018.69 BTC (approximately $21.98 million).

As reported by Whale Alert, two fund transfers totaling nearly $5 million in BTC at then-current prices were moved on June 24.

June 10 saw a total of 20 transactions take place, in amounts ranging from about $149,000 to more than $300,000.

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