Elliptic: “hackers who stole 120,000 BTC from Bitfinex sold only 4%”

Elliptic analysts investigated the fate of bitcoins stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in 2016. 119,756 BTC were moved by hackers to a single wallet and 79% of them still remain there.

Quite a lot of transactions were carried out by cybercriminals in 2017, but then there was a lull until 2020. In 2020, hackers made several transactions, and in 2021, so far only one. The attackers moved 12,241 BTC, which at the time of the transaction was $ 774 million.

According to analysts, 84% of the bitcoins moved by hackers were sent to addresses associated with darknet markets. Another 12% ended up on wallets with anonymity functions, and only 4% were sent to exchanges

Among the darknet markets, hackers chose Alphabay, and after it closed, they began sending bitcoins to the Russian-speaking market Hydra. At the moment, bitcoins worth $ 72 million have been sent to this market. With the help of Hydra, cybercriminals exchange bitcoins for gift certificates, prepaid cards, and even directly for rubles.

Bitcoins sent to private wallets ended up on JoinMarket and Wasabi Wallet addresses. The amounts here are not very significant – $ 4 million for the first wallet and $ 5.3 million for Wasabi Wallet. At current prices, the attackers were able to launder $ 267 million worth of bitcoins. This is about 4% of the stolen money.

As a reminder, the Bitfinex hack took place in 2016, and in 2019, the brothers Eli Gigi and Assaf Gigi (Eli Gigi and Assaf Gigi) were arrested in Israel, who are suspected of participating in this hack. However, since then no information about their fate has appeared.