Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex is looking for a little help in recovering more than $1 billion in stolen bitcoin funds.
Bitfinex: We Need Your Assistance!
The company saw more than $1.3 billion in crypto mysteriously vanish from its platform in the year 2016. After four long years, the exchange is no closer to recovering the funds. Executives are hoping someone involved in the theft or someone with knowledge of the incident will come forward and lending a hand. Those that do will be privy to a $400 million reward, a solid portion of the stolen funds.
The company announced in a statement:
Bitfinex is offering a reward to any persons that connect us with hackers responsible for the unauthorized transfer of almost 120,000 bitcoins from the exchange in August 2016. We will reward anyone with information that can put us in direct contact with those responsible for the 2016 security breach at Bitfinex. The hackers will receive a share of the returned property.
It goes without saying that the crypto space is wrought with theft and malicious activity that has seen many users lose their funds virtually overnight. The latest and most prominent example includes the Twitter-BTC hack that saw many high-profile individuals lose control of their Twitter accounts to unseen hackers. The malicious actors made off with only $121,000 in BTC, but the idea that such a large social media platform could be easily compromised like that raises the hair on the back of crypto traders’ necks everywhere.
Rewarding the Hackers?
Thus far, Bitfinex has only managed to get about 30 percent of the lost funds back. Execs are hoping that the promise of a financial reward will somehow persuade the original actors to step forward and admit their guilt. In a separate statement, the platform explained how the process of the reward mitigation will work:
After the identity of the hackers is confirmed, the persons establishing contact with the hackers will be rewarded. The hackers will be paid upon return of the stolen bitcoin. Those who put Bitfinex in contact with the hackers will receive five percent of the total property recovered (or equivalent funds or assets at current market values) and the hackers will receive 25 percent of the total property recovered (or equivalent funds or assets at current market values). Any payments made to those connecting Bitfinex will work to ensure this can be done securely, thereby protecting the identities of all parties, and Bitfinex reserves the right to impose conditions on any transfers in order to verify claims and ensure a secure process.
As good as this all sounds, $400 million is small beans compared to the stolen amount of $1.3 billion. Right now, the hackers have a lot more money in hand, and given their malicious histories, why would they want to trade a large amount for a smaller one?
