Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex reported yesterday that it had received more than USD 300,000 in cash and nearly USD 7,000 in bitcoin cash (BCH) from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This, the product of the recovery of funds seized as part of an ongoing lawsuit against individuals linked to the theft the platform suffered in 2016.
The assets will be returned to Bitfinex users who suffered losses in the attack that occurred seven years ago, although at that time the amount stolen was 119,756 bitcoins, worth the equivalent of US$72 million (USD 3,700 at today’s cryptocurrency price).
“Under the terms of Bitfinex’s contractual obligations to token holders, these amounts will be used to redeem Recovery Rights Tokens (RRTs) issued by Bitfinex following the 2016 security breach,” the company said in a statement.
However, with 30 million RRTs currently in circulation, the amount recovered is insufficient to redeem all the RRT tokens issued, so it is likely that each user will receive only a small amount as a refund.
The company adds that, in compliance with its contractual commitments, all RRT holders must redeem at $1. Meanwhile, the remaining 80% of any additional recovered assets will be paid to holders of Unus Sed Leo tokens, a utility token used in the iFinex ecosystem of which BitFinex is a part.
The company said RRT holders will have their tokens redeemed prorated starting today, July 6 at 12:00.01 a.m. UTC.
Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were charged with laundering money stemming from the multi-billion dollar Bitfinex hack. This after they were arrested and one of the wallets they allegedly used to carry out “complex money laundering processes” was confiscated.
The discovery of these keys, stored in an encrypted document in a cloud service that detailed addresses of more than 2,000 accounts, allowed the U.S. government to take control of 94,000 BTC.
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