Discussion

• Bitfinex Bitfinex on x

  U.S. Department of Justice Announcement Regarding Seizure of Bitcoin Linked to the August 2016 Security Breach

• @kevincollier Kevin Collier on x

  I deeply, deeply regret to inform you that this is the rap video of the woman who was just arrested as part of an alleged husband-wife scheme that laundered some $3.6 billion in crypto. https://www.youtube.com/...

• @bitfinex @bitfinex on x

  We're pleased that DOJ has announced recovery of a significant portion of the bitcoin stolen during the 2016 hack. https://www.justice.gov/...

• @liz_franczak Liz Franczak on x

  lol she has a TikTok https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @eamonjavers Eamon Javers on x

  BREAKING: DOJ says Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, both of New York, were arrested today and charged with money laundering cryptocurrency stolen from Bitfinex in 2016. DOJ says it has recovered a whopping $3.6 billion worth of crypto.

• @puttinyadown @puttinyadown on x

  This is who stole 120k from the bitfinex hack https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @jackdwagner Jack Wagner on x

  idk much about crypto security but this person shouldn't have been able to steal 4.5 billion dollars of it https://twitter.com/...

• @thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x

  So... Razzlekahn says in that song that she's an economist. Anyone know what school she subscribes to?

• @cz_binance @cz_binance on x

  Didn't have time to research it in detail. 2 honest questions. Did bitfinex lose or make money from the hack? If they get the BTC back, how should they split that with LEO holders, or the people who took a loss to accept LEO at the time of the hack (and then sold LEO)? 🤔

• @ericwdolan Eric W. Dolan on x

  When this becomes a movie, I already have the casting. https://twitter.com/...

• @dystopiabreaker @dystopiabreaker on x

  https://twitter.com/...

• @cryptofung @cryptofung on x

  feds catching the bitfinex hacker https://twitter.com/...

• @ground_chuck7 @ground_chuck7 on x

  @fintechfrank Posted the day before the hack lol https://twitter.com/...

• @sociablebarely @sociablebarely on x

  I refuse to believe this was the mastermind behind a 4.6 billion bitcoin heist. https://twitter.com/...

• @apompliano @apompliano on x

  One of the Bitfinex hackers was verified on Twitter and wrote articles for Forbes. Unreal.

• @matt_levine Matt Levine on x

  if i were her lawyer this would be exhibit a for the defense, how can she both be a darknet criminal genius laundering billions of dollars of bitcoin for a hacker syndicate and also do this rap

• @matt_levine Matt Levine on x

  “this song is for the entrepreneurs” ma'am i am going to stop you right there https://twitter.com/...

• @bitfinexed @bitfinexed on x

  “If” Bitfinex is still waiting for the return of the $850 million dollars that was seized in a money laundering scandal, where Bitfinex instructed customers to deposit to shell accounts run by third parties they had no contracts with. Get ready to wait. https://twitter.com/...

• @laurence_e_day Dr Laurence Ξ. Day on x

  He kept the keys To 120,000 BTC On a cloud drive

• @somebadideas Aaron Stewart-Ahn on x

  Good luck to the actress who will be in an inevitable limited series about the $3.6 billion crypto laundering grifter whose voice & rap videos makes Elizabeth Holmes look like easy mode https://twitter.com/...

• @sarahnemerson Sarah Emerson on x

  I can't remember the last time someone accused of doing federal crimes had such a massive online footprint lol. Maybe Shkreli? But like not even close.

• @sarahnemerson Sarah Emerson on x

  Just incredible stuff here https://twitter.com/...

• @cobie @cobie on x

  This insane Bitfinex hacker couple reveal really derailed My Chemical Romance day, will have to try again tomorrow

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  Although they knew where the funds were, they didn't yet know who was behind the hack or how to recover them. Tracing exchange accounts to India-based emails, they linked the $BTC to the business and personal accounts of two people: Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan. …

• @providecontext @providecontext on x

  This “rapper” with an alias of RAZZLEKHAN aka Heather Morgan was charged today in NYC, with being part of money laundering scheme that involved Billions worth of Bitcoin. I believe she should have already been in prison for life for whatever this is. https://twitter.com/...

• @iamjosephyoung Joseph Young on x

  Some brief thoughts on the U.S. seizure of $3.6 billion from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. It's not as simple as bullish or bearish for $BTC. Very brief thread. (1/4)

• @silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x

  The great thing about the indicted Bitfinex hack launderers is that they have a tremendous digital trail of weird self promotional hustle culture entrepreneurial bullshit and it is all so normie, none of it indicating any guile or diabolical ability.

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  This has big implications for both LEO and BTC, as it represents a huge block of BTC that will come on the market. With selling methods like TWAP as well as OTC deals, it's likely that it doesn't affect the $BTC market too much, but $4 billion is a decent chunk. https://twitter.c…

• @aubreystrobel Aubrey Strobel on x

  nothing more poetic than one of the alleged bitfinex hackers having the girl boss stance as her profile pic and this churchill quote as her pinned tweet https://twitter.com/...

• @kevinroose Kevin Roose on x

  The craziest part of the Bitfinex news is that someone with one of those “Hustler 💪 / Optimist 🚀 / 3x Entrepreneur 📈” LinkedIn bios actually had a job.

• @rudy_betrayed @rudy_betrayed on x

  this woman, Heather Morgan, was arrested today for stealing $4.6 billion worth of bitcoin that was hacked from bitfinex in 2016. not kidding https://twitter.com/...

• @hdevalence @hdevalence on x

  what'd we learn from this, folks https://twitter.com/...

• @dystopiabreaker @dystopiabreaker on x

  i dont understand. how did these idiots have the bitfinex bitcoin. who gave it to them. why did they have it. who would trust them with it. what is going on

• @dylanleclair_ @dylanleclair_ on x

  Many bitcoiners feel uncomfortable keeping 0.01 BTC in a hot wallet and the BitFinex hackers kept the private keys to $3 billion worth of bitcoin in a dropbox cloud storage file. Unbelievable.

• @davidgura David Gura on x

  Bail is set at $8 million. Or, 182.2 BTC. https://www.bloomberg.com/...

• @novogratz Mike Novogratz on x

  The Bitfinex hack recovery is actually medium term bullish for crypto. The bad guys lost their coins. It's why 3 letter agencies are learning to like $BTC. It's a good day for the crypto security companies.

• @ncweaver Nicholas Weaver on x

  One overlooked detail in the Razzlekahn arrest. Almost all the money went through AlphaBay, using it as a mixer. The feds were able to see through this because they seized AlphaBay. Its amazing how, even years after, darknet market seizures pay dividends to the feds.

• @sarahnemerson Sarah Emerson on x

  Everyone's laughing at the guy and his rapper wife who were arrested by the DOJ today for trying to launder $4.5 billion in crypto.............. but the funniest thing to me is that she was an INCREDIBLY prolific Forbes contributor https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @skupor Scott Kupor on x

  Crypto-phobes will use this story to warn of the role of crypto in money laundering. But, the opposite is true: blockchain is law enforcement's best friend, as this story demonstrates. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ

• @mattzeitlin Matthew Zeitlin on x

  so apparently the going rate for hacked bitcoin money laundering is just over 20% of the proceeds https://www.justice.gov/... https://twitter.com/...

• @nkulw @nkulw on x

  These are the two people indicted for laundering $4.5B in stolen crypto https://www.justice.gov/... https://twitter.com/...

• @eamonjavers Eamon Javers on x

  Here's what the government is saying about how it tracked the stolen Bitcoin and what the couple allegedly did to try to cover their tracks. https://www.justice.gov/...

• @loganbartlett Logan Bartlett on x

  Truly gut-wrenching to have lost so many rappers in their prime: - Tupac - Biggie - Big L - Mac Miller - Nipsey - Drakeo - Razzlekhan

• @sgurman Sadie Gurman on x

  The Justice Department arrested two people and seized over $3.6 billion worth of digital currency stolen during a hack of a cryptocurrency exchange, its largest-ever financial seizure, officials said. @dnvolz https://www.wsj.com/...

• @kevincollier Kevin Collier on x

  Her website might be more cursed. https://razzlekhan.com/ https://twitter.com/...

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  On January 31st, on-chain observers began to see strange activity around the wallets holding the funds from the hack. It seemed strange to many observers as the funds were consolidating without any privacy-seeking behavior (mixing, use of Monero, Tornado Cash). https://twitter.co…

• @thegrugq @thegrugq on x

  One wonders if basically “use a password manager” was insufficiently specific. “connection among the accounts was confirmed by a spreadsheet in LICHTENSTEIN's cloud storage that included the log-in for accounts at various VCEs and a notation regarding the status of the accounts”

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  What do: • $4 billion in missing $BTC • Female rapper RAZZLEKHAN • Forbes magazine • the US Department of Justice Have in common? A thread on the 2016 Bitfinex hack, its resolution, and the implications. The strangest crypto story of the year (so far, at least): 🧵👇

• @thegrugq @thegrugq on x

  How to make a multimillion dollar company? Start with a billion dollars in Bitcoin https://twitter.com/...

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  But here's where the story gets weirder. While they were $BTC billionaires on paper, the couple had laundered the money via, among other things, purchasing $500 gift cards from Walmart, Uber, https://hotels.com/, and Playstation. They couldn't even access most of the money https:…

• @kevincollier Kevin Collier on x

  To me the biggest takeaway here is that it can take six years to arrest somebody behind one of these giant crypto heists, even if they made off with billions and were in the US. Something to keep in mind as we see a new multimillion dollar hack every week. https://twitter.com/...

• @thegrugq @thegrugq on x

  I don't always store a text file of BTC wallet's private keys, but when I do I just stick it in Google Drive, iCloud and Dropbox (for redundancy). Wouldn't want to lose that! https://twitter.com/...

• @scottmelker @scottmelker on x

  The takes are hilarious. People are acting like the US government is going to take stolen #Bitcoin, which is not even theirs, and dump it in a single market sell order on Coinbase lol. Relax. https://twitter.com/...

• @silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x

  I mean... https://twitter.com/...

• @rapplerdotcom @rapplerdotcom on x

  Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan spent the illegal proceeds on items ranging from gold and non-fungible tokens to a $500 Walmart gift card, prosecutors say. https://www.rappler.com/...

• @real_vijay Vijay Boyapati on x

  Important to understand these Bitcoins aren't supply waiting to be auctioned to the market (like Silk Road coins) but belong to Bitfinex and should be returned to them. I'm confident Bitfinex knows how to HODL #Bitcoin. https://twitter.com/...

• @snowden Edward Snowden on x

  The United States Department of Justice seems to be alleging this tweet was authored by a man who was holding three billion dollars in stolen bitcoin... in a cloud account. You know, that place trivially accessible to the US government. (via @dystopiabreaker) https://twitter.com/…

• @nftherder @nftherder on x

  Mind you that the ppl responsible for the Bitfinex hack were fully doxed, active on social media, had a sizable following and pretended to be expert entrepreneurs Reminds me a lot of certain scammers in nfts ... https://www.wsj.com/...

• @zhusu Zhu Su on x

  Congrats 🎉 A great result after all these years Also a great example of crypto industry + DoJ cooperation to catch the bad guys https://twitter.com/...

• @harrylitman Harry Litman on x

  So you also can launder it. What can't you do with bitcoin? https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

• @smorgasboredom Evan DeSimone on x

  We all have one extremely cringe friend and it's high time we start suspecting them of money laundering. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @sandofsky Ben Sandofsky on x

  With the $3.6B in stolen Bitcoin, Ilya Lichtenstein is technically YC's most successful alumni.

• @bgarlinghouse Brad Garlinghouse on x

  To see a statement like this is incredible (and reaffirming to so many in the space using crypto for good), after years of FUD that crypto is only for criminals. https://twitter.com/...

• @jackniewold Jack Niewold on x

  Today, the DOJ announced that the hacked $BTC, now worth $3.6 billion had been recovered. No one had ever really lost track of the $BTC even as those controlling the wallets had tried to hide their trail using now-defunct AlphaBay, Monero, and gift cards. https://twitter.com/...

• @silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x

  “Heather R. Morgan is an international economist, serial entrepreneur, and investor in B2B software companies. She is an expert in persuasion, social engineering, and game theory,” her bio on the site read. https://www.vice.com/...

• @nktpnd Ankit Panda on x

  I regret to inform you that real-world cyberpunk is going to be far worse than what you might have been led to expect https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...

• @erenbali Eren Bali on x

  If you were robbed by these two https://twitter.com/... you don't deserve to get your money back. I'm just saying. https://twitter.com/...

• @mylegacykit @mylegacykit on x

  94,000 BTC recovered from 2016 Bitfinex hack. Unsurprisingly, the name Craig Wright immediately pops up. 😂 https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @scottmelker @scottmelker on x

  Good read. https://twitter.com/...

• @eringriffith Erin Griffith on x

  it remains wild to me that hackers who stole $71 million in 2016 turned that into $4.5 billion by simply sitting on it https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @campuscodi Catalin Cimpanu on x

  On page 2 is how the DOJ managed to seize the funds and link the suspect to the hack after a search warrant of the suspect's cloud storage account found a file with the private keys of almost 2,000 cryptocurrency addresses linked to the Bitfinex hack. https://twitter.com/...

• @jordanschachtel @jordanschachtel on x

  In an old blog post, Morgan wrote: “Bitcoin is possibly the most valueless asset in history” and “If you are thinking about investing in Bitcoin you might as well flush your money down the toilet” Looters gonna loot 😂😂 https://econgoat.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @neerajka Neeraj K. Agrawal on x

  even if you hate cryptocurrency you gotta admit it's one hell of a show

• @aeyakovenko @aeyakovenko on x

  so many lives ruined. wtf wouldn't you just reach out to the CTO and get the bounty instead https://twitter.com/...

• @justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x

  Maybe crypto isn't a scam. But there sure are a lot of headlines about crypto scams. https://twitter.com/...

• @bitcointina @bitcointina on x

  So, I guess this is pretty good for Tether USDT and bad for all the Tether Fudsters. https://twitter.com/...

• @mimms Sarah Mimms on x

  These videos are incredible: Woman Accused Of $4.5 Billion Crypto Laundering Scheme Moonlights As A Rapper And Forbes Writer https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... via @buzzfeed

• @lorenzofb Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai on x

  New: The woman who is accued of laundering $1 billion in stolen cryptocurreny was very much online. She posted cringe-worthy rap videos on YouTube, and was a Forbes contributor. https://www.vice.com/...

• @davidgura David Gura on x

  The U.S. government seized 94,636 BTC. Per @TheJusticeDept's statement of facts (https://www.justice.gov/...), “Those funds remain secured in the U.S. Government's possession.” They are not “on its balance sheet.” https://twitter.com/...

• @burgessct Christopher Burgess on x

  😲The arrests of Lichtenstein and Morgan is a big deal, or as our @POTUS would say #BFD ⤵️ $3.6 billion in bitcoin recovered. https://twitter.com/...

• @jon_christian Jon Christian on x

  Of COURSE today's mega crypto launderer is a Forbes contributor https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @freddieraynolds @freddieraynolds on x

  This is real. The people arrested for holding $4B of hacked Bitfinex Bitcoin had a couples TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/... https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...

• @weldpond Chris Wysopal on x

  DOJ demonstrating that they can “follow the money”. It might be easy to steal crypto but how do you cash out? Crypto ecosystem ultimately relies on centralized law enforcement. https://thehill.com/...

• @campuscodi Catalin Cimpanu on x

  Court documents detail the money laundering scheme, which also involved deposing and withdrawing funds from the defunct AlphaBay dark web marketplace as a way to lose the money trail PDF: https://www.justice.gov/... https://twitter.com/...

• @saylor Michael Saylor on x

  “Those files contained the private keys required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from Bitfinex, and allowed special agents to lawfully seize and recover more than 94,000 #bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex.” https://www.justice.gov/...

• @tuurdemeester Tuur Demeester on x

  94,000 BTC recovered! https://twitter.com/...

• @pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings on x

  *Billions* https://t.co/2nMPEI5Ozj

• @fintechfrank Frank Chaparro on x

  “The criminal complaint alleges that Lichtenstein and Morgan employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques” https://twitter.com/...

• @epro Emil Protalinski on x

  $BTC has barely moved on the news. “The case marks the largest single seizure of funds in the Justice Department history, officials said, and is the most high-profile prosecution to emerge from the agency's newly-announced effort to investigate crimes involving cryptocurrency.” h…

• @fintechfrank Frank Chaparro on x

  “Ilya Lichtenstein, 34 years old, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31 years old, were both arrested without incident Tuesday morning in Manhattan, the department said. They are scheduled to make their initial court appearances Tuesday afternoon.” https://www.wsj.com/...

• @ldrogen Leigh Drogen on x

  I'll take the other side of that This money was assumed defacto lost, it wasn't on the market previously Now it is, one way or another, there's an $3.6B ask out there https://twitter.com/...

• @roshunpatel Roshun Patel on x

  DOJ seizing 3.6bn in stolen BTC is a good headline cause that will eventually be auctioned by the U.S. marshal, removing it from order books for quite some time - current market would have considered that inventory liquid, now its locked

• @cobie @cobie on x

  Oh shit lmao https://twitter.com/...

• @ericgeller Eric Geller on x

  Statement of facts from the investigating FBI agent in support of the complaint and arrest warrant: https://www.justice.gov/... https://twitter.com/...

• @susanlitv Susan Li on x

  Here's the #DOJ charges against the couple accused of money laundering some of the $3.6 billion in #crypto stolen in 2016 from #bitfinex Remember #bitfinex is the company backing #Tether the controversial $80 billion digital currency Couple bought #nfts #gold #cryptocurrency http…

• @eamonjavers Eamon Javers on x

  DOJ says Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen from Bitfinex's platform after a hacker breached Bitfinex's systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.

• @joshdcaplan Josh Caplan on x

  “According to court documents, Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen from Bitfinex's platform after a hacker breached Bitfinex's systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.”

• @ericgeller Eric Geller on x

  New: U.S. arrests New York couple for allegedly conspiring to launder $4.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Authorities have recovered more than $3.6 billion after seizing files that contained private keys for the couple's bitcoin wallets. https:/…