Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex, has offered a reward of up to $400 million to anyone who can assist them in recovering the 119,755 BTC that was stolen from the exchange in August 2016.
Despite being four years since the unfortunate incident, the company has not given up on the lost assets and is determined to retrieve them by offering such an enticing reward.
According to Bitfinex, the hackers are also considered for the part of the reward if they are willing to return the assets to the exchange. This means that anyone who can connect the company to the hackers and the hackers themselves who volunteer to return the assets will get a share of the reward.
Explaining how the reward would be shared, the company noted,
Today’s announcement of a reward is our latest effort to recover these stolen funds. Those who put Bitfinex in contact with the hacker 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 with the hackers and the hackers themselves will be classified as costs of recovery of the stolen property.
If all the stolen BTC can be recovered, the total amount of rewards to be granted will be almost $400 million, the company said.
At the time of the hack in 2016, the total amount of BTC stolen was worth about $76 million, but according to today’s price, the assets are worth $1.3 billion, which is great profits for the hackers and the reason why Bitfinex is determined to recover the assets.
Since the theft, the hackers have only transferred a small number of the stolen Bitcoin a few times to unknown wallets, twice in 2019 and once in May this year, which means they are still holding the assets.
Meanwhile, in early 2019, the US government returned 27.66 BTC ($104,900 at that time) to Bitfinex as retrieval of part of the stolen Bitcoins after some investigations on the hack, Coinfomania reported.
