Key Takeaways:
- The bitcoins transferred accounted for 79% of the total 119,756 bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex in 2016, making it one of the largest bitcoin breaches ever.
- Earlier this week, the Twitter account Whale Alert stated that criminal actors had transferred 10,000 bitcoins valued at more than $383 million to an unknown wallet during Asian hours on Tuesday.
- A movement of malevolent funds frequently generates suspicions of criminal actors attempting to cash out, causing markets to become apprehensive.
According to the Whale Alert, hackers moved around $5 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex breach in two 10,000 BTC transactions to an unknown wallet.
In two tweets today, advanced cryptocurrency tracker Whale Alert revealed that the culprits of the Bitfinex breach shifted 20,000 bitcoin units worth $767 million in two separate transactions in one single transaction.
For the second year in a row, hackers started transferring stolen assets in the 2016 Bitfinex incident. At the moment, the exchange was robbed of 119,756 BTC, forcing the market to crash.
Last year, when Bitcoin was trading at its all-time high in mid-April 2021, the hackers moved the first batch of Bitcoins worth $750 million.
Exploiters moved a comparable amount of money in April 2021, according to the transactions page from the “Bitfinex hack wallet.” A total of $623 million in Bitcoin was sent to an unknown wallet at the time.
According to the official website, Bitfinex aims to achieve this by providing consumers with cutting-edge trading tools, cutting-edge technology, and unrivalled levels of customer support.
The world of digital assets is changing at a remarkable speed. Keeping up with such rapid technological change necessitates a forward-thinking and flexible strategy. Bitfinex offers its users and worldwide liquidity providers cutting-edge digital asset trading services.
Hack on Bitfinex
The cash transferred recently accounts for 21.97% of the bitcoin stolen from the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange.
In 2016, hackers breached the Bitfinex trading website, stealing a staggering 119,756 bitcoins from consumers’ accounts. The stolen assets were worth $67.47 million at the massive crypto robbery. The asset class’s value, on the other hand, has risen dramatically as bitcoin continues to be used as a hedge against inflation, among other aspects.
If this shift causes the Bitcoin price to become more volatile, it will be intriguing to watch. Hackers have shifted over a quarter of the total Bitcoin stolen.
Although the incident occurred in 2016, the hackers could not sell bitcoin on cryptocurrency trading platforms because cryptocurrency exchanges blacklisted the attackers’ addresses, preventing them from turning the coins into fiat currency.
The stolen assets were primarily left in the hackers’ address due to the shift, with the hackers moving specific BTC units to different unknown addresses on a few instances.
In 2020, the attackers sent 1,200 BTC to an unidentified wallet address. The transfer, however, was spread out over four transactions, as has always been the strategy.
Is it possible this will have an impact on the market?
While most exchanges have made it impossible for hackers to receive payment for assets stolen, they may be able to do it in other ways. On the other hand, the current cash transfer suggests that the hackers plan to manipulate the market.
With a market capitalization of $730 billion, Bitcoin is currently trading 4.5% higher at $38,500. However, Bitcoin is currently priced at a 45% discount to its all-time high of $69,000 set in November 2021.
The massive transaction to an unknown wallet was most likely not the final step in the hacker’s USD or other fiat cash withdrawal.
The spot Bitcoin market would not detect the effect of increasing selling pressure if hackers broke the money down into smaller chunks. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $38,336 with no unusual price movement. 20,000 BTC from the stolen funds is still in the “uxwczt” wallet.
Bitfinex has likewise persisted in its pursuit of the stolen assets.
The Hong Kong-based exchange rewarded 30% of the total stolen assets two years ago, which would be split between the hackers and anyone who could link Bitfinex to the hackers.
