A wallet holding funds related to the Bitfinex hack in 2016 has seen the coins move for the first time in years. The transaction arrived at a tight moment for Bitfinex, when the exchange is beleaguered by suspicions of deep losses and being propped up only by credit from Tether (USDT).
According to the transaction record, around 300 BTC were moved in several transactions this April 25. The transactions are worth around $1.59 million by current prices. This is only a small fraction of the entire hack, where more than 744,000 BTC were stolen.
The address activity was noted by a Reddit user, based on previous lists of potential wallets belonging to the hack. Additionally, traders noticed a trading anomaly, with Bitcoin (BTC) dumping on Kraken briefly.
So...this morning coins from the 2016 Bitfinex hack move for the first time: https://t.co/b3T3kst7SC
Then a liquidity spike wick down to $4357 on BTCUSD on Kraken a few hours later.
Now the NYAG action: https://t.co/oQWjDaa8WL
🤔¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/DGaQPHYDVm
— Dan McArdle (@robustus) April 25, 2019
Bitfinex is carrying more than 22% of Bitcoin (BTC) activity, based on recent CryptoCompare data. The importance of the exchange in the crypto ecosystem makes it closely watched for any warning signs.
It is unknown if the sale is directly related to the liquidation of stolen funds, or is a mistake. What is more worrying is that the funds were moved just as Bitfinex is headed to a legal case raised by the New York Attorney General. The investigations of the accusation point to the fact that Bitfinex may have lost significant funds due to ties with Crypto Capital, which acted as a payment provider in the past few months. Bitfinex denied the claims that the funds were lost, stating that some of the accounts may be temporarily frozen.
The negative news surrounding Bitfinex also caused BTC prices to drop on Friday, sinking to $5,291.84 as selling continued. The loss of trust in Bitfinex led to Tether (USDT) feeling the effect, sinking toward $0.97 on Kraken.
Across the board, USDT is seeing a slight loss of trust, as prices fell toward $0.98 on most markets. At the same time, other stablecoins, including DAI, increased their price slightly above the dollar peg.