Editors Note: This article comes fromcryptonews, Translator: Cha LiangSead Fadilpašić, Translator: Cha Liang
Editor: Lu Xiaoming
Editor: Lu Xiaoming
According to cryptonews, the U.S. government successfully helped Bitfinex recover bitcoins worth about $110,000 and return them to Bitfinex. Bitfinex has issued an announcement confirming the news. Although the recovered bitcoins are only a small part of the theft, it is also a rare case of law enforcement successfully recovering stolen cryptocurrencies.
119,756 bitcoins stolen
On August 3, 2016, 119,756 bitcoins (worth approximately $73 million at the time) were stolen from Bitfinex. Now the U.S. law enforcement agencies have helped Bitfinex successfully recover 27.66270285 BTC. According to the current price of BTC, the value of the currently recovered Bitcoin is about 110,000 US dollars. Bitfinex announced the news in its official announcement, the following is the original text of the announcement:
Bitfinex announced that 27.66270285 bitcoins that were illegally stolen in August 2016 due to security breaches have been returned to Bitfinex through the efforts of US law enforcement agencies. Since the attack in 2016, Bitfinex has cooperated with international law enforcement to provide necessary information and assist in the investigation. In November 2018, Bitfinex learned that the U.S. government had recovered some of the stolen bitcoins. Currently Bitfinex has received 27.7 BTC. According to the recovery strategy formulated after the attack, these bitcoins will be converted into U.S. dollars and paid to Returnable Token (Recovery Right Token, hereinafter referred to as RRT) holders.
However, the Bitfinex announcement and the US law enforcement agencies did not disclose how the bitcoin was recovered. Industry insiders speculated that the government may be a customer of a security company, or it may be that hackers left traces when they committed crimes.
Since being hacked in 2016, Bitfinex has been cooperating with international law enforcement agencies, providing intelligence and assisting with investigations. Bitfinex was notified in November 2018 that the U.S. government had recovered bitcoins lost in 2016 when Bitfinex was hacked.
Previously, stolen bitcoins had little chance of being recovered, and investors had to rely on exchanges to compensate them.
Bitfinex is arguably one of the biggest victims of theft among cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitfinex stated that it will convert this part of the recovered bitcoins into US dollars and distribute them to 5,000 investors who suffered losses due to the coin loss. Bitfinex legal counsel revealed that law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe have participated in the investigation of the hacking incident, but did not give further information or name the agencies involved in the investigation.
compensate investors
After the theft on August 3, 2016, Bitfinex adopted a unique method to record the loss of all accounts and credit the customer account at the ratio of 1 BTX (the platform currency issued by Bitfinex) to 1 US dollar.
Within eight months of the coin loss, all BFX holders exchanged their tokens for 1 BTX to 1 USD, or directly exchanged their holdings for iFinex Inc. (Bitfinex is iFinex Inc. . a stake in a digital currency trading platform owned and operated by the company). All BFX tokens have been destroyed in the process. In addition, Bitfinex created RRT for BFX holders to convert BFX into iFinex shares.
The advantage for RRT holders is that in the event of the retrieval of stolen funds and after compensation to holders of outstanding or unconverted BFX tokens, the retrieved funds will be distributed preferentially to RRT holders, up to The ratio of 1 RRT to 1 US dollar can be realized. Since all BFX tokens have been redeemed and burned, the current portion of bitcoins will be distributed proportionally to RRT holders.
Giancarlo Devasini, Chief Financial Officer of Bitfinex, said: Today, two years after the theft of Bitfinex, we have seen the efforts of the US government and their positive response to this matter. We are very pleased to be able to compensate the investors who suffered losses. Bitfinex still chooses to trust us during the most difficult times. We appreciate the tireless efforts of the US federal law enforcement agencies, they have tracked and investigated the coin loss, and they are committed to recovering and returning the stolen assets.”
