U.S. government moves Bitcoin tied to $9B Bitfinex heist
A small tranche of Bitcoin tied to the 2016 Bitfinex hack was shifted Wednesday by wallets linked to the U.S. government, according to on-chain investigator Arkham Intelligence. About 8.2 BTC—roughly $628,000 at current prices—was transferred to Coinbase Prime, Arkham’s data shows. The coins last moved two years ago, when another government address sent them to a wallet Arkham labeled “Bitfinex hacker seized funds.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation about the coins’ origin or the reason for the transfer. Moves to centralized exchanges like Coinbase are commonly seen as a prelude to selling, but the government’s intentions for these specific coins remain unclear.
This transfer represents only a tiny slice of the cache the government seized in connection with the case. Federal authorities have taken control of more than 94,000 BTC related to the investigation into Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan—assets now worth over $7.2 billion. The original breach is estimated at 119,754 BTC, equivalent to about $9.18 billion at today’s prices.
Brief recap of the case: prosecutors say Lichtenstein exploited a vulnerability at Bitfinex to orchestrate the theft. He was arrested in 2022 on conspiracy to commit money laundering charges, pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024. Morgan, his wife and a rapper, also pleaded guilty to money laundering-related charges and was sentenced to 18 months. As part of plea agreements reached in 2023, the pair agreed to forfeit the remaining proceeds from the stolen Bitcoin.
Both Lichtenstein and Morgan were reportedly released recently; Morgan publicly credited “Papa Trump” for shortening her sentence, although there has been no official record of presidential commutation in the case. Her remark at the time: “So razzle-fucking-dazzle.”
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