Bitfinex offers $400M reward for return of $1.3B in stolen Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex is offering $400 million for the return of $1.33 billion worth of Bitcoin BTC stolen by hackers in 2016.

“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,” said the company in a statement .

“We will reward anyone with information that can put us in direct contact with those responsible for the 2016 security breach at Bitfinex,” said Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino. “The hackers will receive a share of the returned property.”

Today, BTC trades at around $11,000, but was worth only $650 in August 2016 — meaning the value of the stolen cryptocurrency has risen by roughly 1600% since the attack.

In February last year, authorities recovered 27.6 of the pilfered BTC, currently worth a little more than $300,000.

[ Read: Bitfinex denies role in spooky transfer of $1.37 million in stolen Bitcoin ]

Effectively, Bitfinex hopes 30% of the total funds stolen will be enough to entice the hacker(s) (or anyone connected to them) to come forward.

Bitfinex explained the exact stipulations of the reward:

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 5% of the total property recovered (or equivalent funds or assets at current market values) and the hackers will receive 25% 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.

For what it’s worth, Bitfinex tried the whole monetary reward thing directly following the attack, when it offered $3.5 million (around 6,000 BTC at the time) to anyone who could point them in the right direction.

Back then, that represented roughly 5% of the value of the stolen Bitcoin, but it was considerably more than today’s offer, at least in terms of US dollars.

Not sure if today’s $400 million reward is going to bring out the snitches.

Published August 4, 2020 — 14:26 UTC