{"id":72565,"date":"2024-02-29T09:13:46","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T13:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/?p=72565"},"modified":"2024-02-29T09:13:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T13:13:49","slug":"united-states-govt-transfers-922m-worth-of-seized-bitcoins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/united-states-govt-transfers-922m-worth-of-seized-bitcoins\/","title":{"rendered":"United States Gov\u2019t Transfers $922M Worth of Seized Bitcoins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United States government transferred $922 million from two Bitcoin wallets<\/a> containing funds seized from Bitfinex in 2016 on the same day Bitcoin crossed the $60,000 mark for the first time in over two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"United
United States Gov\u2019t Transfers $922M Worth of Seized Bitcoins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The transfers by the U.S. government transpired on February 28, the same day that Bitcoin surpassed $60,000 for the first time in over two years. As of 9:45 pm UTC, Bitcoin had increased by 5.52% to trade at $62,507. This past week, the first cryptocurrency in the world has risen by more than 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial test transfer occurred on February 28 at 3:39 pm and was worth 1 Bitcoin ($60,200 during the transfer), according to data from Arkham Intelligence\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/g>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/clipPath>\r\n <\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a>, the U.S. government-labeled device subsequently transmitted a fourth transaction worth $12,267 Bitcoin ($748.46 million), a third transaction worth 0.01 Bitcoin ($613.35), and a second transaction worth 2,817 Bitcoin ($172.74 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"

U.S. government Bitcoin wallet transfers. Source:\u00a0Arkham Intelligence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The government seized the funds after a 2016 breach of Bitfinex valued at approximately 119,754 BTC (equivalent to over $7.4 billion at the current price).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day after Ilya Lichtenstein, a hacker who stole and laundered more than $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange, testified in a Washington court detailing how he executed one of the largest Bitcoin heists<\/a> in history, the transfers took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg reports that on February 27, Lichtenstein testified before a jury that he hacked individual accounts at other exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, and had access to Bitfinex's systems for several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

February 2022 saw the apprehension of Lichtenstein and his rapper spouse, Heather Morgan (also known as Razzlekhan). At the time, the United States government claimed they conspired to launder $4.5 billion in compromised Bitcoin, which seized $3.6 billion in the largest financial seizure in history. On August 3, 2022, the government confiscated an additional $475 million Bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2023, Lichtenstein and his spouse entered pleas of guilty to a money laundering <\/a>conspiracy charge about the Bitfinex breach. Reportedly, Amazon has begun production on a film about the Bitfinex money launderers. According to reports, the screenplay will draw inspiration from a 2022 New York Times article that characterized the couple as “Bitcoin's Bonnie and Clyde.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States government transferred $922 million from two Bitcoin wallets containing funds seized from Bitfinex in 2016 on the same day Bitcoin crossed the $60,000 mark for the first time in over two years. The transfers by the U.S. government transpired on February 28, the same day that Bitcoin surpassed $60,000 for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":52589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[15019,5561,5713,8335],"class_list":["post-72565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bitcoin-news","tag-bitcoin-3","tag-btc-2","tag-us-government-2","tag-crypto-transfer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/image-40.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}