The U.S. government, through its enforcement agencies, has given 27.66270285 Bitcoins to Bitfinex. This quantity is part of the 119,756 BTC taken from the exchange in August 2016.
Since the hack, the exchange has collaborated with law social control agencies to produce data that may aid in the investigations.
The United States alerted Bitfinex in November of last year that it had obtained some BTCs believed to be from the 2016 hack.
Following the hacking event, Bitfinex launched AN investigation with the help of social control agencies internationally, to trace the 119,756 BTC that nonexistent from the exchange’s premises. per the recovery strategy printed after the incident, Bitfinex generalized the losses from each account and attributable a USD-pegged token dubbed BFX in the same quantity to the damages every client suffered. afterward, Bitfinex gave its customers the choice to either redeem their tokens for money or exchange their BFX for the shares of iFinex opposition., the corporation that owns and operates Bitfinex.
All BFX tokens were destroyed throughout this method, and stockholders received the Recovery Right Token (RRT) that delineated their various quantities in iFinex’s shares.
Bitfinex, which was initially notified by the U.S. government regarding the retrieved funds last November, can currently convert the twenty-seven.7 BTC in U.S. greenbacks and distribute them among the RRT holders.
In his official statement, Giancarlo Devasini, a business executive at Bitfinex, expressed his feelings about the contribution of the U.S. government. He added:
We will continue to assist law enforcement with their inquiries and once again extend an open invitation to the hackers or anyone harboring information pertaining to the breach to contact us in whichever medium they feel most secure with to finally resolve the situation in a mutually beneficial manner.
Hackers have utilized varied practices to use the vulnerabilities of centralized entities and countermeasures usually appear to be one step behind them. localized exchanges, like the Binance DEX, and cold wallets can be a good thanks to mitigate fraudsters’ power however cannot eliminate them. in addition, crypto traders would like timely access to their funds, thus storing assets in exchanges is crucial.
High levels of security will be the cornerstone of the mainstream use of cryptocurrencies, and such developments can increase people’s faith in them.
It gives us great pleasure to report we have received bitcoins from the U.S. government that were proceeds of the 2016 security breach. In line with our original recovery plan, this is being converted to USD and paid to RRT holders.
Find out more here – https://t.co/UwCMNERes9
— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) February 25, 2019
The Recovery Increases Trust in Cryptocurrencies
The security breaches of crypto exchanges have been one of the most stressful points of cryptocurrencies since their beginning, and the inability to reverse transactions is one of their main weaknesses compared to the standard industry.
A decade after Bitcoin launched, we have continued to experience problems regarding the safe storage of assets, the most recent being the Cryptopia hack, in which over $3 million disappeared.
While the amount of BTC recovered from the Bitfinex hack could appear insignificant because it represents only zero, 023% of the lost funds, the recovery demonstrates the ability of blockchain technology to correct malicious human activities.
