2016 Bitfinex Hack With $2.5B in Stolen Bitcoins, Rises Again

The largest transaction discovered was over 10,000 BTC, valued at over $383 million, while others were as small as 0.29 BTC. The wallet address that got the blacklisted BTC now has a total balance of 94,643.29 BTC, or almost $3.6 billion.

This Movement Might Be To Scare Investors Into Selling Their BTC

While it's impossible to say why the hackers are shifting the Bitcoins, some speculate that it's to scare investors into selling their Bitcoins. When hackers transferred 10,000 of their stolen BTC in 2021, Twitter user Alistair Milne speculated that the hackers were moving the Bitcoins to cause market panic while holding short positions because they couldn't cash out. According to the user, the hackers cannot sell, but they can move the coins to "manipulate the market."

With the assistance of US authorities, some of the stolen BTC was returned to the exchange in 2019. In the same year, police in Israel made hack-related arrests after tracking a $1.5 million stolen fund movement. A year later, Bitfinex offered up to $400 million to anyone who could provide information leading to the recovery of the stolen cryptocurrency. According to the exchange, the amount will be considered "costs of recovery."