WhaleAlert has identified another wave of transfers of some of the funds stolen during the Bitfinex hack of 2016. According to reports, the hackers moved a total of 416 BTC ($4,089,151) at around midnight, Wednesday 10, 2020, to multiple unknown Bitcoin addresses.
The hackers transferred the coins to 20 different addresses, with each transaction carrying between 15 BTC to 33.3 BTC. Some of the receiving addresses then moved the funds to other unknown addresses.
This makes it the third wave of coins the thieves have moved from the Bitfinix hack within the last 30 days. Last week, Whale Alert reported that the hackers transferred 80.93 BTC ($794,852) to two unknown wallets.
On May 21, a small 30.66 BTC ($301,134) was also moved by the hackers to unknown wallets. This means the group that stole the funds transferred approximately $5.19 million in BTC over the last three weeks.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex lost an estimated 119,756 BTC in a security breach on August 2, 2016. And the hackers waited three years to start moving the funds. Although the price of Bitcoin at that time was around $600–$630, the stolen coins are worth over $1.1 billion, with BTC price currently at $9,821.
Following news of the hack, Bitcoin price plunged 22%, but a correction followed a week later with the exchange promising to refund affected customers.
Launched in 2013, Bitfinex has become one of the biggest trading platforms in the industry and one of the few exchanges to survive the painful sting of hackers.
About $4.5 billion worth of crypto assets were lost to hacks and fraud in 2019, and more than $1.5 billion has already been lost this year, according to reports from cybersecurity firm CipherTrace.
Fortunately, the cryptocurrency industry is maturing. Exchanges and cybersecurity companies are actively working to protect users and their funds through the use of scrutinous Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements and advanced tracking tools.
Binance, for instance, is known for freezing any identify-able stolen funds transferred to the exchange. Similarly, CipherTrace announced earlier this year that it would launch a program to train analysts on how to track and recover stolen cryptocurrencies using the CipherTrace Investigator tool.