U.S attorneys are demanding the return of 94,643 Bitcoin (BTC), alongside some Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) and Bitcoin Gold (BTG) from Bitfinex. 

These were lost from a hack that took place in 2016 where 119,754 BTC were stolen, approximately worth 72 million dollars. However, in today’s rates that comes up to more than 11.8 billion dollars.

Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan who were arrested back in 2022 were found responsible for those thefts. The motion, which was written on January 14, demands that the digital assets be returned to Bitfinex “in-kind”, which refers to the amount and type of cryptocurrency that was initially lost. This follows the investigation of one of the biggest hacks in the crypto industry.

After the hack in 2016, Bitfinex suspended all withdrawals and started a recovery process. Instead of making users bear the full brunt of the losses, the exchange distributed the losses uniformly among users, making a 36% deduction in every account balance. 

To balance out the loss, Bitfinex issued tokens known as BFX tokens. These tokens were redeemable for cash or shares in iFinex, which is the parent company of Bitfinex. After around 8 months all BFX tokens were exchanged.

In October 2024, the US government acknowledged the attempts made by the exchange Bitfinex to reimburse their clients and went on to say that the exchange would regain most of its funds. 

At the same time, the exchange had mentioned that the customers are not quite likely to be repaid in full. For that purpose, a webpage was designed to keep the users informed.Victims were given until November 13, 2024, to share how the hack affected them. Bitfinex has not yet detailed how it plans to use the recovered funds. 

Also Read: North Korean Hackers Stole $659M in Crypto Hacks Last Year