In August of 2016, Bitfinex suffered a serious hack that resulted in the loss of 119.756 BTC equal, as of today, to about 1.35 billion dollars. A small part of the funds (about 27 bitcoins) has been recovered but a large sum is dormant in several wallets.
On the day of the hack, bitcoin was worth about $650, today the value is almost twenty times as much.
According to data published by Whale Alert, yesterday, August 12th, 2019, 30.66 bitcoins (350,000$) left one of the wallets involved in the hack.
âš 30.667542 #BTC (351,015 USD) of stolen funds transferred from Bitfinex Hack 2016 to unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) August 12, 2019
Bitfinex and the 2016 hack
Following the hack in 2016, the exchange had been looking for a solution to better manage the situation, crediting BFX tokens to all users, with a 1:1 ratio against the US dollar.
All BFX holders could redeem their tokens by exchanging them for shares issued by iFinex Inc. The BFX tokens still in circulation were then converted into the RRT token, used as a recovery plan token to cover losses pending reimbursement.
To date, investigations are underway but the perpetrators have not been found yet.
Bitfinex amidst many problems
The recovery of the funds from the hack is just one of the battles in which the exchange is involved. The case of the New York Attorney General (NYAG) against Bitfinex and Tether has already cost the latter half a million dollars and a lengthy document review process involving over 60 lawyers.
