Bitcoin wallets confiscated by the U.S. authorities in the Bitfinex breach, which led to guilty pleas for Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan, have revived.
In less than two hours, four transactions from case-tagged wallets to unidentifiable addresses moved over $1 billion. The U.S. government didn't respond to CoinDesk's request for comment on the transactions' purpose.
Two crypto wallets seized by the U.S. authorities for the Bitfinex breach moved roughly $1 billion of bitcoin to unidentifiable addresses.
At 18:39 UTC (1:39 pm ET), a government-owned wallet that Arkham Intelligence identified as holding confiscated Bitfinex hacker cash moved 1 BTC. About 30 minutes later, the wallet's 2,817 BTC were despatched, leaving it empty. They represented $173 million in bitcoin.
Arkham reported that another wallet with 12,300 BTC sent 0.01 BTC to an unnamed address and then transmitted the rest. Based on the current price of bitcoin, the transfers were worth $750 million, bringing the total value of the bitcoin transferred from the two accounts to $923 million. The transfers' purpose was unclear. Media inquiries via the Justice Department's website were delayed.
A turbulent day of trading saw the bitcoin exceed $60,000 for the first time since November 2021, then rise past $64,000 before plummeting to just around $59,000. As of press time, it traded slightly over $60,000. The record price was $69,000 in late 2021.
Arkham claims another U.S. government accounts holds 94,600 BTC of confiscated Bitfinex hacker cash, valued $5.79 billion at current prices. Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan, accused with the Bitfinex hack along with Ilya Lichtenstein, was known for her colorful social media postings.
In August, the Justice Department announced the recovery of 95,000 stolen bitcoin from the defendants' crypto accounts, worth $3.6 billion.
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