U.S. Prosecutors Seek Return of 94,643 Recovered Bitfinex-Hack Bitcoin
Federal prosecutors asked a court to authorize the return in kind of approximately 94,643 BTC recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. The request involved one of the largest government-held Bitcoin recoveries and raised an unusual restitution question: returning the asset itself rather than its dollar value.
Federal prosecutors asked the court in January to approve in-kind restitution of approximately 94,643 bitcoin recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. The coins had been seized years after the theft during the investigation of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan and had become one of the largest Bitcoin holdings under U.S. government control.
The request was unusual because prosecutors proposed returning Bitcoin itself rather than liquidating the asset and returning cash proceeds. That approach reflected the scale of the recovery and the fact that the stolen asset had appreciated enormously since 2016.
The filing did not itself complete the transfer. It was a procedural request within the restitution process, and the distinction between proposed return and completed return is important. Historically, however, the filing showed how courts and prosecutors were increasingly dealing with Bitcoin as property that could be identified, seized, held for years and potentially restored in kind after a major cybercrime.