Only 4% of the 120,000 bitcoins stolen from the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange in 2016 have been laundered to date. This is the conclusion reached by the specialists of the analytical company Elliptic.
According to a new report, 79% of funds stolen from Bitfinex did not move until then and remain in the cracker’s wallet. The rest of the coins changed their location, but only $ 270 million of them were laundered.At the current exchange rate, the value of Bitfinex lost bitcoins is about $ 7 billion. Analysts believe that cybercriminals will be able to bring digital currency into traditional currency no earlier than in 100 years. The situation for them is complicated by the ongoing development of tools for analyzing and tracking cryptocurrency transactions, which is why many channels that could have existed back in 2016 are not available today.
For example, there is a known method of “peeling”, when large amounts of assets are quickly moved between wallets, but only a small part, “husk”, is sent to the real destination for exchange. In the past, it was extremely difficult to keep track of such transfers, but now there are automated systems for this that allow you to identify the sender and recipient of a transaction, regardless of how difficult the path for moving coins was chosen.
Elliptic notes that hackers have frequently moved stolen bitcoins in 2017, but their activity has largely dwindled in the past year. Initially, they tried to launder cryptocurrency through the illegal Alphabay marketplace, and after its closure, they moved to Hydra. The rise in bitcoin price in 2021 pushed them to act again and in April they transferred 12,241 BTC. Analysts found that 84% of these coins ended up in darknet markets, 12% in private wallets, and 4% on exchanges.
“After hiatus in 2019, they returned to Hydra in 2020 and are currently depositing $ 3M in stolen bitcoins each month. In total, about $ 72 million in stolen bitcoins have been transferred to Hydra to date, ”writes Elliptic.
Among other things, hackers are trying to use tools to anonymize bitcoin transactions. Initially, they used the JoinMarket service, but later switched to the Wasabi wallet. Thus, in total, they laundered about $ 10 million and continue to send $ 1 million to Wasabi every month.
Only a small fraction of the stolen assets were sent to exchange wallets. Most trading platforms have tightened anti-money laundering and customer identification policies over time, making it almost impossible to directly withdraw large sums from criminal assets.
“At the current rate, it will take another 114 years to sort out the rest of the stolen funds. Blockchain analytics not only sheds light on criminal activity, as in the case of Bitfinex, but also makes it increasingly difficult to convert criminal proceeds from cryptocurrencies into real money, ”adds Elliptic.
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