US GOVERNMENT

DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS

"The stolen funds were originally seized from Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who hacked the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, stealing around 120,000 Bitcoin valued at roughly $8.2 billion today. Both were arrested in 2022, and their case is now nearing sentencing, scheduled for November."

"According to a MistTrack tweet, a suspicious outflow was detected from a wallet controlled by the U.S. government (0xc9E...34c): nearly $20 million was transferred to 0x3486ee700ccaf3e2f9c5ec9730a2e916a4740a9f, including: 5.4M USDC, 1.12M USDT, 13.7M aUSDC and 178 ETH. Most tokens were swapped into ETH. Approximately 19.3M worth of tokens were later returned to the U.S. government address."

"Suspicious Outflow from U.S. Government-Controlled Wallet (0xc9E...34c):

~$20M was transferred to 0x3486ee700ccaf3e2f9c5ec9730a2e916a4740a9f, including: 5.4M $USDC, 1.12M $USDT, 13.7M $aUSDC and 178 $ETH. Most tokens were swapped into $ETH.

-115.93 $ETH was transferred to #Binance(suspected nested exchanges). -63.65 $ETH was transferred to #N.exchange. -15.86 $ETH was transferred to #Switchain.

-549 $ETH remains in 0xbf6f7c503e858aded4e18ce2bcf93846fd726c15. -2,198 $ETH remains in 0x15d0a31ed5050ed8decd3c101aaee0b2ad2e6441. -13.19M $aUSDC remains in 0x3486ee700ccaf3e2f9c5ec9730a2e916a4740a9f."

In 2016, the Bitfinex exchange was hacked. These funds were seized by the US government in 2022. In October 2024, their wallet was breached and the funds were relocated. The funds were returned the next day, suggesting that the US government was able to negotiate with the attacker successfully.

@NFTCryptoBottle Twitter (Nov 15)
@MistTrack_io Twitter (Nov 26)
https://light.misttrack.io/s/nPrj0 (Nov 26)
https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/us-government-crypto-wallet-hacked-20m/ (Nov 26)
@ErgoBTC Twitter (Nov 26)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-government-crypto-hacked-arkham-intelligence (Nov 26)
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1gbwsgz/hacker_returns_193_million_to_drained_us/ (Nov 26)
Hacker Returns $19.3 Million to Drained US Government Crypto Wallet - Decrypt (Nov 26)
Hacker Drains $20M from U.S. Government-Controlled Wallet? (Nov 26)
@ArkhamIntel Twitter (Nov 26)
Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan  (Nov 26)
Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan  (Nov 26)
@zachxbt Twitter (Nov 26)

More case studies

Cryptobottle Disabled Swap
Balance Check Vulnerability

Base Blockchain Unverified
Compound Fork Lending Exploited