- Ilya Lichtenstein announced an early release and credited the First Step Act.
- The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists a scheduled release date of February 9, 2026 via its inmate locator.
- Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Rhiannon “Razzlekhan” Morgan, pleaded guilty to their roles in the 2016 Bitfinex hack; prosecutors recovered roughly 94,000 Bitcoin (about $3.6 billion in 2022).
- Law enforcement traced the theft to a vulnerability in Bitfinex’s multi-signature setup, according to TRM Labs, and prosecutors moved in 2025 to return seized assets to Bitfinex.
Ilya Lichtenstein announced his early release in a post on X, saying he owed the change to the First Step Act. The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ inmate locator lists a scheduled release of February 9, 2026.
Lichtenstein was sentenced in November 2024 to five years for laundering proceeds from the 2016 hack of Bitfinex. He and his wife, Heather Rhiannon "Razzlekhan" Morgan, pleaded guilty in 2023 after their 2022 arrests.
Prosecutors say Lichtenstein fraudulently authorized more than 2,000 withdrawals, moving 119,754 bitcoin (then about $71 million) to a wallet he controlled. Law enforcement later recovered roughly 94,000 bitcoin, valued at about $3.6 billion in 2022. In January 2025, U.S. prosecutors filed a motion to return those assets to Bitfinex (court filing).
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said Lichtenstein exploited a weakness in Bitfinex’s multi-signature withdrawal process to bypass approvals from BitGo (TRM Labs report). Stolen funds were converted to other cryptocurrencies and routed through mixing services such as Bitcoin Fog.
Investigators traced part of the couple’s activity to purchases of Walmart gift cards, which were redeemed via Walmart’s iPhone app under an account in Morgan’s name. Morgan was sentenced to 18 months and said she left prison earlier; she posted on X that Lichtenstein’s return home after years apart was a welcome event.
A Trump administration official, speaking to Hacker-ilya-lichtenstein-bitfinex-razzlekhan.html”>CNBC, stated that Lichtenstein had "served significant time on his sentence and is currently on home confinement consistent with statute and Bureau of Prisons policies." Lichtenstein wrote he aims to work in Cybersecurity and thanked supporters in his post.
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