US Government Transfers $922M in Seized Bitcoin

The US government transferred $922M worth of Bitcoin seized from Bitfinex in 2016 with the transfers coinciding with Bitcoin’s value.

The US Government has transferred a total of $922 million worth of Bitcoin from two cryptocurrency wallets that housed cash that was seized from Bitfinex in 2016.

The transactions made by the US Government took place on the same day that Bitcoin’s value surpassed $60,000 for the first time in more than two years, on February 28.

In the 24 hours leading up to 9:45 p.m. UTC, the price of Bitcoin increased by 5.52%, reaching $62,507. The first cryptocurrency created saw a weekly increase of more than 20%.

At 3:39 p.m. UTC on February 28, the first test transfer, which was only worth one bitcoin (at the time of the transfer, valued at $60,200), occurred.

Arkham Reveals US Government Transactions

According to data provided by Arkham Intelligence, shortly after that, the wallet that the US Government tagged sent a second transaction that was for 2,817 Bitcoin ($172.74 million), a third transaction that was worth 0.01 Bitcoin ($613.35), and a fourth transaction that was worth 12,267 Bitcoin ($748.46 million).

When Bitfinex was hacked in 2016, the government took possession of this money, worth about 119,754 bitcoins at the time of the attack. At its current price, Bitcoin is worth more than $7.4 billion.

Ilya Lichtenstein, a hacker who stole and laundered over $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange, appeared in court in Washington, outlining how he pulled off one of the largest Bitcoin heists in the world.

The transactions took place the day after Lichtenstein’s appearance. According to a report by Bloomberg, Lichtenstein allegedly testified before a jury on February 27 that he had access to Bitfinex’s servers for many months while compromising individual accounts at other exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.

In February 2022, authorities took Lichtenstein and his rapper wife, Heather Morgan also known as Razzlekhan into custody. At the time, the United States government accused them of conspiring to launder $4.5 billion worth of hacked Bitcoin.

The government seized $3.6 billion of the stolen bitcoin, making it the greatest financial seizure in the history of the world. On August 3, the government seized an additional $475 million worth of Bitcoins.

Within the context of the Bitfinex hack that occurred in August 2023, Lichtenstein and his wife entered guilty pleas to the charge of money laundering conspiracy.

According to recent reports, Amazon has begun production on a film about the money launderers behind Bitfinex. Reports state that the script will be based on a 2022 New York Times article about the couple, which dubbed them “Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde.”