Crypto exchange Bitfinex recovers $314,000 from 2016 hack
Quick Take
- Crypto exchange Bitfinex recovered over $312,000 in cash and nearly $2,000 worth of Bitcoin Cash from a 2016 hack.
- The recovered funds will be paid out to Bitfinex users affected by the hack seven years ago.
Crypto exchange Bitifinex has recovered $312,000 in cash and 6.917 BCH ($2,000) from a 2016 theft.
Bitfinex received the assets from the United States Department of Homeland Security, which played an instrumental role in seizing the stolen digital assets and prosecuting the culprits.
"We are extremely pleased to be able to reach another successful milestone in the recovery of assets stolen from Bitfinex in 2016,” Bitfinex Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said in a company statement. "We look forward to recovering as much of the stolen bitcoin as we possibly can and redistributing that to holders of the tokens that were issued in response to the hack in 2016.”
The recovered funds will be paid out proportionally to owners of Recovery Right Tokens (RRT). These tokens were issued to holders affected by the 2016 hack. RRT holders can swap their tokens 1:1 with $1 of recovered funds, and 30 million RRTs remain in circulation.
Bitfinex lost 119,756 BTC through a security breach in the 2016 hack. Since then, the U.S. government incrementally recovered funds related to the hack. In February of 2022, the Justice Department recovered 94,000 BTC, worth $3.6 billion at the time, for Bitfinex, The Block previously reported.
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