According to Whale Alert, substantial quantities of BTC stolen from the 2016 Bitfinex hack have begun to move to an unknown wallet. The first transaction was carried out by the hackers on February 1. They initially sent 1 BTC to the anonymous wallet. There have been 26 transactions on the anonymous wallet as of today.

Almost 120,000 bitcoins – now worth approximately $4.6 billion – were stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in August 2016. After five years, just 21% of stolen bitcoins have been moved, and only 4% have been laundered or traded.

The 119,756 bitcoins stolen were first sent to a single wallet, where 79% of them remain to this day. Following a surge of transactions in early 2017, there were very few outflows from the wallet until 2020, when activity increased significantly. In April 2021, 12,241 BTC of stolen assets were moved, with a total worth of $774 million at the time. This increase was apparently fuelled by the skyrocketing Bitcoin price, which increased by more than 700% in the previous year.

According to Elliptic, the hackers laundered the money using darknet marketplaces such as Hydra and the privacy-focused Wasabi wallet. Wasabi help to evade blockchain tracing by utilizing a transaction known as a “coinjoin.” It is believed that approximately 13% of criminal profits in bitcoin are laundered using private wallets.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

Join CoinCu Telegram to keep track of news: https://t.me/coincunews

Follow CoinCu Youtube Channel | Follow CoinCu Facebook page

Hazel

CoinCu News