It appears that the US government will compensate Bitfinex, which lost almost 120,000 Bitcoin (BTC) in a hack in 2016. In a report, the government claims that Bitfinex is the only entity eligible for this significant compensation as they have already refunded their customers through BFX tokens.
Bitfinex wants to receive 120,000 BTC
In 2016, Bitfinex was hacked, resulting in the loss of almost 120,000 BTC. After this, the company cut customers’ money by 36% to cover losses. However, later in 2017, Bitfinex compensated their customers by issuing special tokens called “BFX”, while some customers were also compensated with shares of Bitfinex’s parent company, iFinex.
After examining all the details, the US government comes to a point where they have discovered that Bitfinex is the main victim of those 120,000 stolen BTC, and not the customer, because they have already been compensated with BFX tokens and iFinex shares. The report added:
“The government is not aware of any individual who qualifies as a victim under the CVRA or for restitution under the MVRA, except perhaps Bitfinex, the Victim Virtual Currency Exchange (‘VICTIM VCE’).”
However, in 2022, the US legal authority seized almost 95,000 BTC related to the hack that Bitfinex suffered in 2016 and which is now worth more than $5.8 billion. Since then, Bitfinex has been in contact and working with the authority to recover that BTC.
BTC compensation from Bitfinex, impact of LEO token
After this update from the US government, Bitfinex’s LEO token skyrocketed, but now it seems to be cooling off. According to Coinmarketcap data, when the US government shared the report, the price of LEO tokens rose 14%, rising from $5.84 to $6.88 in just two hours. However, it later gave up all these gains.
At the time of writing, LEO is trading around $6.10 and has experienced a price increase of almost 2% in the last 24 hours. During the same period, interest from investors and traders skyrocketed, while trading volume increased by almost 500%, indicating remarkable participation from traders and investors.