Stolen twice: $20m in Bitfinex funds taken from US gov wallet
Funds seized by authorities in 2016 crypto heist hacked again, raising fresh concerns over security
On Thursday, a crypto wallet associated with the US government was hacked, leading to the theft of $20 million in digital assets originally seized from the notorious 2016 Bitfinex hack.
The incident has raised alarms in the crypto community, especially as the funds were transferred to a newly created wallet just five days old, further deepening the mystery surrounding the breach.
Initially, on-chain analytics company Arkham Intelligence reported withdrawals from the Aave lending protocol, noting that this is the wallet address’ first activity in the last 8 months. The hacker then allegedly transferred the funds to a crypto wallet starting with “0x348”.
ALERT: US GOVERNMENT JUST PULLED $5.4M OUT OF AAVE
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024
This is their first activity on this address in 8 months. pic.twitter.com/zwxDWQmm9B
The Arkham platform revealed that 1.125 million USDT, 5.445 million USDC, 13.699 million AUSDC, and 177.892 ETH—totalling around $20 million in value—were all transferred from Aave to the mysterious wallet.
In an X post, the analytics firm noted that they think “the attacker has already begun laundering the proceeds through suspicious addresses linked to a money laundering service”.
๐จ๐ฃ๐๐๐ง๐: ๐จ๐ฆ ๐๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ฐ๐ผ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ $๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ .
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024
$20M in USDC, USDT, aUSDC and ETH has been suspiciously moved from a USG-linked address 0xc9E6E51C7dA9FF1198fdC5b3369EfeDA9b19C34c to… pic.twitter.com/UXn1atE1Wx
Crypto sleuth ZachXBT described the activities as “nefarious” and "theft" on X.
funds are going to instantly exchanges looks nefarious
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 24, 2024
Theft
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 24, 2024
The funds in question were seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, where Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, stole around 120,000 Bitcoins. Chainalysis reports the hack involved 2,075 transactions. Authorities arrested the couple in 2022.
The suspicious wallet involved in the recent hack was linked to another crypto wallet funded two years ago via CoinSpot, an Australian exchange that operates within its regional boundaries.
As the story is still developing, experts and analysts continue to track the stolen funds in the suspicious wallet.
