Hey, remember that time that hackers stole $1.1 billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin back in 2016?
You don’t?
Hackers stole 119,756 bitcoin from Bitfinex back in 2016. One of the largest heists in Bitcoin’s history. Second only to grand shitshow of the Mt. Gox hacking, in which hundreds of thousands of bitcoin were stolen.
At the time of the hack, that amount of Bitcoin was valued at $72 million dollars. The hack caused the price of Bitcoin to crash some 20%. Now, we’re talking about $1.1 billion dollars’ worth of BTC. At $182 billion in market cap, this amount represents nearly 0.6% of the entire market. Still, if it were to dump immediately and entirely, the $24 billion daily trading volume (today’s) would be affected at 4%. I think it could easily cause a massive dump trigger in all markets, causing the bots to sell in mass and causing a crash like we’ve seen time and again.
But the hackers don’t have all that bitcoin. The Bitfinex hackers have been able to sell off a small amount of it so far. Some $275,000 in 2017. The US government has recovered…27 BTC from the attack, a laughable amount.
To this day, it is not clear who was behind the hack, and the hackers themselves have been sitting on the billion dollar stack without selling. They recently just send 416 BTC to some wallets, perhaps to sell.
Check out the address here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Bf5aQqsd7gtjLysYQKtqQ3yBLDHZogouA
It could very well be people on the inside of Bitfinex that are responsible. They could just be biding their time, enjoying the stabilization and swelling of price of BTC. The fact that they haven’t sold it all yet, in my opinion, shows now that they can’t sell (OTC is possible in all sorts of shady ways) but that they don’t need to do so yet. The person(s) behind it are clearly smart enough to have acquired it in the first place. They seem to be smart enough as well to HODL and ride the waves for the ‘right time’.
Bitfinex has often been involved in controversy. They’ve been audited and targeted by the US government (New York Attorney General), are likely in on the massive scam of Tether (which actually CAN crash the market), and yet continue to call themselves a leading exchange for BTC.
I don’t think this amount will crash the market. But it highlight the importance of OWNING YOUR OWN BTC. The simple rule remains: not your keys, not your crypto. Secure your assets and get it off the exchanges and into your own wallets, cold or hot.
Learn from the 110,000+ worth of BTC stolen from Bitfinex!
