Cash News
- A US government wallet containing funds from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, was drained of $20 million.
- Despite most of the funds being returned, a portion remains outstanding after being sent to exchanges.
A US government-controlled crypto wallet that was breached and drained of $20 million was mysteriously handed back most of the funds by the attacker yesterday.
Blockchain analysis platform Arkham Intelligence released an update stating:
“The US Government’s address has just received $19.3 million back following yesterday’s reported hack, less than 24 hours after the initial address breach.”
While the reasoning behind the return is speculative, the exposure from hacking a government-linked wallet may have deterred the attacker from trying any further to launder the funds.
The only money that remains outstanding were tokens that had been sent “to instant exchanges like Switchain, HitBTC, and N Exchange,” according to blockchain investigator ZachXBT.
Arkham Intelligence was first to sound alarms on Thursday, tweeting that a known government wallet suspiciously moved $20 million in Ethereum and stablecoins to an “attacker” address.
Adding another layer of intrigue, it was revealed that the address held funds originally seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
In 2016, Bitfinex lost 119,754 Bitcoin, then worth $70 million, in a major breach.
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Ilya Lichtenstein later admitted to orchestrating the attack, using sophisticated tools to gain access to the exchange.
He and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested in 2022, leading to the largest crypto seizure in the Department of Justice’s history.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is down 0.7% over the past 24 hours to trade at $67,130.
- Ethereum is down 2.1% to trade at $2,470.