Bitfinex Recovers Stolen BTC with US Government’s Help and Reimburses Clients

[hugeblack]

Good news for some Bitfinex users.

The Bitfinex platform was hacked in 2016 and caused the loss of more than 120,000 BTC, which is worth 72 million dollars.
According to a recent report, the platform, in cooperation with the US government, recovered a small portion of that amount, estimated at 27.7BTC "does not seem big," which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

The Chief Financial Officer at Bitfinex, Giancarlo Devasini said that:
“Over two years following the hack of the Bitfinex platform, today we see the results of a clear and robust response strategy and the efforts of the U.S. government. It gives us great pleasure to be able to reimburse the traders that were loyal to us and believed in us at a very difficult time. We would like to thank U.S. federal law enforcement agencies for their ongoing efforts to investigate the security breach and their commitment to seizing and returning stolen assets.”

[LeGaulois]

Well, good job and better than nothing but 27BTC are ridiculous compared to 120k. Considering 5k customers that's an average of 0.005BTC each (but not the 5k will receive the same amount). Imagine if you owned 10BTC and you receive an email to say they have 30$ for ya.
Did they say if they're still investigating on it or stop?

[carlfebz2]

which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

So basically speaking 27.5 divide 5000 accounts it do have an average calculation of 0.000554 BTC on each user presumption.They do focused
in returning funds on small account traders but somehow they tried to compensate.Just still have some doubts if the amount they have recovered is truly just 20+ btc.

[shield132]

which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

So basically speaking 27.5 divide 5000 accounts it do have an average calculation of 0.000554 BTC on each user presumption.They do focused
in returning funds on small account traders but somehow they tried to compensate.Just still have some doubts if the amount they have recovered is truly just 20+ btc.

I think they'll determine ratio and someone who lost much will receiver higher amount compared to others. Btw there is one thing that sounds hilarious for me, if those persons were able to hack this exchanger which would require a lot of programming knowledge and skills, was it so hard for them to cut every traces aftet all? Can't wait to see next news, how much will they return this time?

[leowonderful]

Pretty interesting that only about 27BTC was recovered by the US Government- I wonder what the details of how they found the coins are, but it's always great to see people being compensated for something that wasn't their fault even if the compensation might be very small. Perhaps the gov was looking into a case involving BTC and it happened to be that the coins involved were traced to the BFX hack?

[carlfebz2]

which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

So basically speaking 27.5 divide 5000 accounts it do have an average calculation of 0.000554 BTC on each user presumption.They do focused
in returning funds on small account traders but somehow they tried to compensate.Just still have some doubts if the amount they have recovered is truly just 20+ btc.

I think they'll determine ratio and someone who lost much will receiver higher amount compared to others. Btw there is one thing that sounds hilarious for me, if those persons were able to hack this exchanger which would require a lot of programming knowledge and skills, was it so hard for them to cut every traces aftet all? Can't wait to see next news, how much will they return this time?

Not all hackers would have that 100% completely deletion of their trails.I would love to hear as well on how they do recover out this 27 btc.Yes, i agree that
even this small amount of bitcoins recovered they do atleast think of into its users when it comes to compensation.If they do able to recover some amounts then they might
able to done the same thing later on.

[vit05]

120,000 BTC, which iswas worth 72 million dollars. I think the most interesting part is that they have recover BTC. How they have recovered? Did they arrested someone and took his wallet? Or did they track until an exchange or another service and seized?

[BitMaxz]

From 120k to 27.7BTC it's too far but at least they recover some since the price increased a lot I think customers will accept this better than nothing.
Unlike the Mt.Gox that until now no one gets a refunded.

120,000 BTC, which iswas worth 72 million dollars. I think the most interesting part is that they have recover BTC. How they have recovered? Did they arrested someone and took his wallet? Or did they track until an exchange or another service and seized?

There is no so much information about this if they arrested the hackers or not you check the full article from here https://cryptoshib.com/bitfinex-recovers-stolen-btc/

[dothebeats]

It's the effort that counts, I guess? Just to show their peers that they are still interested on reimbursing the lost coins. Then again, even if they don't want to reimburse it, they are legally obligated to do such seeing that the US government is watching their every step. If I was one of the 5000 customers that received reimbursements, I will be furious, but then again I have to understand that it's partly my fault for leaving funds on an exchange. The 120k BTCs might not be recovered anymore, but at least, trying to give back something to your clients is something commendable (or something that they should really do anyway.)

[milewilda]

It's the effort that counts, I guess? Just to show their peers that they are still interested on reimbursing the lost coins. Then again, even if they don't want to reimburse it, they are legally obligated to do such seeing that the US government is watching their every step. If I was one of the 5000 customers that received reimbursements, I will be furious, but then again I have to understand that it's partly my fault for leaving funds on an exchange. The 120k BTCs might not be recovered anymore, but at least, trying to give back something to your clients is something commendable (or something that they should really do anyway.)

It is really something commendable which they are still trying to recover and give back compared to other similar exchange hacking incidents which its users havent received a penny ever since.
They didnt tend to say on hows the retrieval been done but at least we do see some effort on their side.

[BitHodler]

Then again, even if they don't want to reimburse it, they are legally obligated to do such seeing that the US government is watching their every step.

Is the US government really watching every step of Bitfinex? They did their best to no longer be subjected to US authorities by no longer allowing US citizens to register and use that platform.

If the US government did care, they would at least dig into what's happening over at Tether, because their stable coin is listed on multiple regulated exchanges and has been accused of not having enough fiat in reserves.

Overall, I would be happy with anything that Bitfinex comes up with. If you can choose between a little or nothing at all, people will appreciate the little that's being offered to them.

What do people have to lose here? The worst that can happen is that there is no compensation, which is something you already don't have. You can't lose something you don't have, so be happy with this.

[figmentofmyass]

Then again, even if they don't want to reimburse it, they are legally obligated to do such seeing that the US government is watching their every step.

Is the US government really watching every step of Bitfinex? They did their best to no longer be subjected to US authorities by no longer allowing US citizens to register and use that platform.

If the US government did care, they would at least dig into what's happening over at Tether, because their stable coin is listed on multiple regulated exchanges and has been accused of not having enough fiat in reserves.

that's exactly what they've been doing. the CFTC and DOJ are both investigating tether and bitfinex for market manipulation: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/bitcoin-rigging-criminal-probe-is-said-to-focus-on-tie-to-tether

the CFTC investigation goes all the way back to december 2017 and is presumably still active. now that the DOJ has been involved for several months i won't be surprised to see criminal enforcement actions and bank seizures against them, and maybe a takedown of their domains too.

[joniboini]

the CFTC investigation goes all the way back to december 2017 and is presumably still active. now that the DOJ has been involved for several months i won't be surprised to see criminal enforcement actions and bank seizures against them, and maybe a takedown of their domains too.

I'm pretty sure Bitfinex and Tether are going to run out of business soon. They have too many shady activities, not to mention Bitfinex logo suddenly vanished from Cryptocapital site (which is the payment processor for Quadriga, Cex, Coinapult etc, all of them have gone dead).

Hopefully the truth will comes to the surface sooner or later.

[proTECH77]

Good news for some Bitfinex users.

The Bitfinex platform was hacked in 2016 and caused the loss of more than 120,000 BTC, which is worth 72 million dollars.
According to a recent report, the platform, in cooperation with the US government, recovered a small portion of that amount, estimated at 27.7BTC "does not seem big," which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

The Chief Financial Officer at Bitfinex, Giancarlo Devasini said that:
“Over two years following the hack of the Bitfinex platform, today we see the results of a clear and robust response strategy and the efforts of the U.S. government. It gives us great pleasure to be able to reimburse the traders that were loyal to us and believed in us at a very difficult time. We would like to thank U.S. federal law enforcement agencies for their ongoing efforts to investigate the security breach and their commitment to seizing and returning stolen assets.”

For them to leave all their portfolio or store their coins on Bitfinex are liable to their own lose because series or cautions have been drawn from various quarters that "Never leave you coins on any exchange an then expect good result". It happened to my when during cryptopia saga and regretted been involved because i was warned but wouldn't listen. Will like commend the U.S Government for their sincere investigation and the outcome.

[icalical]

Good news for some Bitfinex users.

The Bitfinex platform was hacked in 2016 and caused the loss of more than 120,000 BTC, which is worth 72 million dollars.
According to a recent report, the platform, in cooperation with the US government, recovered a small portion of that amount, estimated at 27.7BTC "does not seem big," which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

The Chief Financial Officer at Bitfinex, Giancarlo Devasini said that:
“Over two years following the hack of the Bitfinex platform, today we see the results of a clear and robust response strategy and the efforts of the U.S. government. It gives us great pleasure to be able to reimburse the traders that were loyal to us and believed in us at a very difficult time. We would like to thank U.S. federal law enforcement agencies for their ongoing efforts to investigate the security breach and their commitment to seizing and returning stolen assets.”

27BTC might seem very very small compared to the actual amount of BTC loss, but it also is written there that it is still an ongoing investigation, so I think the rest of the BTC amount will also be taken back. The thing that I don't understand is if they could actually trace the hacker why they can only get 27BTC. If even the hacker split the BTC, can't they just track it using the transaction history? What method was used by the hacker?

[magneto]

Honestly, it's pretty futile if you've invested much more time and resources into tracing this down and only getting 30~ BTC in return.

Hopefully this does lead to something that is far greater than just the current amount, because it seems like if they are able to even recover a tiny amount now it suggests that there is a remote possibility that the criminals will get tracked down eventually because you've got an entry point for law enforcement now. Though, I'm still not fully bought into that idea yet.

Are there more details to this case, or is this just it? It would be interesting to see if anyone was arrested during the recovery of these funds, and whether that means more leads in the future.

[audaciousbeing]

Good news for some Bitfinex users.

The Bitfinex platform was hacked in 2016 and caused the loss of more than 120,000 BTC, which is worth 72 million dollars.
According to a recent report, the platform, in cooperation with the US government, recovered a small portion of that amount, estimated at 27.7BTC "does not seem big," which will be transferred in cash to accounts of 5,000 customers who were affected by that hacks.

The Chief Financial Officer at Bitfinex, Giancarlo Devasini said that:
“Over two years following the hack of the Bitfinex platform, today we see the results of a clear and robust response strategy and the efforts of the U.S. government. It gives us great pleasure to be able to reimburse the traders that were loyal to us and believed in us at a very difficult time. We would like to thank U.S. federal law enforcement agencies for their ongoing efforts to investigate the security breach and their commitment to seizing and returning stolen assets.”

Wow this is good news no matter how little it is. The mere fact that a message is being sent out clearly to those who have in one way or the other taken things that does not belong to them in the crypto world believing they can hide under the anonymity to perpetuate such can begin to have a rethink. Whether now or later in the future, the hands of the law is always long to catch up on any one who has flouted its provisions.

[MakeMoneyBtc]

Let's be honest here, 27 bitcoins really is a very small amount compared to the total 120.000 that was stoled. After a short calculation 27 bitcoins means only ~0.025% was recovered and that's not going to help resolving this case that much. But let's be positive and hope that this is just the beginning, meaning in the future they will be able to recover at least 25%. At the end of the day 27 bitcoins is worth $100.000 so 5000 people will get back probably from 0.5$ to 1000$ back in their wallets.

[bitrocker2020]

I really wonder how they managed to track down the 27BTC ... its as if someone just deliberately gave back the 27BTC to gain some "positive" news for the said exchanges.  Even though its not much compared to 120k BTC , for those who got it back , something is still better then ZERO

[Samarkand]

...
not to mention Bitfinex logo suddenly vanished from Cryptocapital site (which is the payment processor for Quadriga, Cex, Coinapult etc, all of them have gone dead).
...

Cex.io is still operating as a cryptocurrency exchange. Only Quadriga and Coinapult have paused
their operations for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless I agree that the removal of the Bitfinex logo is
probably not a good sign for the future of Bitfinex.

Another red flag is the increase of the minimum deposit for new Bitfinex customers. They claimed that they want to shift their focus on institutional clients,
but which institutional investor is going to choose Bitfinex over one of the more reputable exchanges?