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When the Justice Department announced it seized billions in stolen cryptocurrency earlier this year, it seemed like great news for victims of a hack that drained around $70 million from customers’ accounts on the Bitfinex trading platform in 2016. 

“It was the biggest relief of my life,” said Frankie Cavazos, who lost 15 bitcoins in the hack. 

Over the course of the last six years, the value of the stolen crypto skyrocketed. At the time of the hack, a single bitcoin was worth less than a thousand dollars. Today it would be trading for around $20,000. 

For Cavazos, getting his bitcoins back would be “a life-changing amount of money.” 

But so far thousands of victims like him haven’t experienced the happy ending they were hoping for. Instead, they’re embroiled in a battle over who is the legal owner of all that stolen crypto.

On the day the news broke that the funds had been recovered, Bitfinex publicly asserted that the stolen bitcoins should be returned to the platform in a statement: “Bitfinex will work with the DOJ and follow appropriate legal processes to establish our rights to a return of the stolen bitcoin.”

That’s because the company believes it’s already made its customers whole by providing them with a variety of digital tokens that customers could sell in exchange for cash after the hack. A company spokesperson told CNBC that Bitfinex customers could have sold the tokens for cash and then used the cash to buy more bitcoins at the time.

The decision to offer customers tokens came after the company decided to generalize its losses across all account holders by 36%. That meant everyone who had a Bitfinex account lost 36% of their assets – not just users whose accounts were hacked.

The first token the company created was called a BFX token. Customers received one BFX token for each dollar they lost.

Bitfinex hack victim Frankie Cavazos

CNBC’s “Crocodile of Wall St” YouTube documentary

Cavazos told CNBC he felt like Bitfinex just “dumped” those tokens on its customers and said he was not given the option to decline the BFX token.

He and several other Bitfinex hack victims spoke exclusively to CNBC for the documentary “Crocodile of Wall Street,” which reports on the theft of the bitcoins and the alleged attempt to launder the stolen crypto.

One issue customers brought up to CNBC is that when they decided to sell their tokens they were actually worth pennies on the dollar.

“They pegged ’em to $1 per BFX token,” Cavazos said. “They put ’em on the open market and it went from $1 to, like, 20 cents, so they were essentially allowed to basically FOMO everyone out of their debt.” 

Rafal Bielenia, who had 91 bitcoins on the platform said: “I sold those tokens as fast as possible immediately when they became available. And I was only able to get like 25% of their value.” He believes, “there was no point in time that they refunded me – not in dollar terms, and not in bitcoin terms.”

Bitfinex hack victim Rafal Bielenia.

CNBC’s “Crocodile of Wall Street” YouTube documentary

For customers who didn’t sell the tokens immediately, the company later gave BFX token holders a chance to convert their tokens into equity shares of iFinex, the corporate entity behind Bitfinex through other tokens the company created called RRT and LEO.

To put it simply, Bitfinex feels the customers have already been compensated fairly and if they chose to sell the tokens before their value reached a dollar, that was their choice to make. In a statement, the company told CNBC, “Upon receipt of the bitcoins recovered from the 2016 security breach, Bitfinex has pledged to use 80 percent of the proceeds to buy back and burn LEO tokens, after all RRTs are redeemed.”

Essentially, Bitfinex wants the bitcoins that were stolen in the 2016 hack returned to the company and it will give a portion of that back to some of their customers in cash, not in bitcoins.

But some of the hack victims still assert the bitcoins belong to them. And the idea that they could lose their bitcoins not once, but twice, seems impossible.

“Why would anybody question that I should get my money back? That was my property,” Bielenia said.

“I still am going to be trying to get ahold of these 15 bitcoins because I truly believe they are mine,” Cavazos said. “I can prove it through the blockchain explorers.” 

Will Hogarth, who also had his crypto stolen in the Bitfinex hack, told CNBC, “I still expect my bitcoin back and I don’t see any reason why they would keep it.”

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CNBC, “Victims, individuals and entities whose money, who claimed that’s their money, that they were victimized by this money laundering scheme will submit claims ultimately to a court who will decide how that money is dispersed.” However, no further details about that process have been released. 

Booking photos for Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein.

Courtesy: Alexandria Adult Detention Center.

For now, the holdup seems to be that there has been no resolution in the court case involving the couple investigators say got caught holding the stolen cryptocurrency. Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein have been charged with conspiring to launder billions in bitcoin.

Morgan is an aspiring rapper who called herself “the Crocodile of Wall Street” and Lichtenstein a self-described “tech entrepreneur, explorer and part time magician.” The duo is facing more than two decades in prison if they’re found guilty. They have not yet entered a plea. CNBC reached out to Morgan and Lichtenstein to hear their side of the story, neither agreed to an interview. So far, no one has been charged with hacking Bitfinex in the first place.

As their case makes its way through the court system, a multibillion-dollar battle over what happens to the money is brewing.

“Ultimately, it’s going to be a dog fight as to who gets this money. Whether or not the government gets to keep it, whether or not Bitfinex gets to keep it, whether or not the customers get it back — anyone who tells you there’s a clear answer is lying for their own benefit,” said cryptocurrency attorney David Silver.

David Silver cryptocurrency attorney at Silver Miller

CNBC’s “Crocodile of Wall Street” YouTube documentary

With billions of dollars on the line, Silver expects “people are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get their hands on that pot of gold.”

“I do think it’s going to be a fight,” Cavazos agreed,

“The end of this story — we don’t know yet,” he said. “But you can’t just simply walk away with a hack like this. There’s someone that’s going to be caught up in this that has to tell the truth and when that shoe drops, it’s going to be really interesting and it’s going to impact who gets the money.”

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Firefly Aerospace prices shares at $45, above the expected range

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Firefly Aerospace prices shares at , above the expected range

The Blue Ghost Mission Operations Engineer, Jaxon Liebeck, showcases the Blue Ghost moon lander at Firefly Aerospace headquarters on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024 in Cedar Park.

Houston Chronicle/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

Firefly Aerospace priced shares in its IPO at $45 on Wednesday, above its expected range.

The Texas-based rocket maker will debut on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker symbol “FLY.” The offering raised $868 million and values the company at about $6.3 billion.

Firefly filed its initial prospectus in July and upped its IPO range this week to $41 to $43 a share, from an initial range of $35 to $39.

The space technology sector has seen rising investor interest over the last few years as billionaire investors such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos put their money behind SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively.

So far this year, space technology companies Voyager Technology and Karman Holdings have gone public.

The broader IPO landscape has also seen major public debuts this year from Figma, CoreWeave and Circle as the market for public offerings reopens following a prolonged drought.

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Volunteers experience life on Mars in the Utah desert

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Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.

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Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event with Apple CEO Tim Cook in the Oval Office of the White House on August 6, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, but not for companies that are “building in the United States.”

The announcement of new sector-specific tariffs shows Trump ratcheting up his efforts to pressure businesses to manufacture their products in the U.S.

But specifics about the plan, such as how much U.S. manufacturing a company needs to do in order to qualify for the tariff exemption, were not immediately clear.

“We’re going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.

“But the good news for companies like Apple is if you’re building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,” he said.

“So in other words, we’ll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”

Read more CNBC tech news

Trump had previously signaled that the duties on chips and semiconductors, which have become key components in virtually every industry, could come as soon as next week.

The remarks came after Trump touted a commitment by Apple to invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, on top of the $500 billion the tech giant has previously pledged.

Several top chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor, Nvidia and GlobalFoundries, have already pledged to manufacture some of their products in the U.S.

They’re not alone: More than 130 projects in the U.S. totaling $600 billion dollars have been announced since 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip company, has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in U.S. manufacturing.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, said in April that it plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years.

GlobalFoundries pledged $16 billion in June to expand its semiconductor manufacturing at facilities in New York and Vermont.

Also in June, Texas Instruments announced a $60 billion boost to seven chip fabs in the U.S. The company counts Apple, Ford, Medtronic, Nvidia and SpaceX as customers.

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Apple and Trump detail $100 billion U.S. spending expansion, including $2.5 billion for an iPhone glass factory

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Apple and Trump detail 0 billion U.S. spending expansion, including .5 billion for an iPhone glass factory

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as Apple CEO Tim Cook gestures, as they present Apple’s announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stand in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook and President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that the iPhone maker will spend an additional $100 billion on U.S. companies and suppliers over the next four years.

The company said its investment would incentivize overseas companies to buy more U.S.-made parts. The commitment is on top of a $500 billion announcement that Apple made in February.

“This is the largest investment Apple has ever made in America and anywhere else,” Trump said. “As you know, Apple has been an investor in other countries a little bit, I won’t say which ones, but a couple, and they’re coming home.”

Trump said that he expects new U.S. factories to be built soon based on his policies.

“There are a lot of factories and a lot of plants that are either under construction or soon we’ll be starting construction,” Trump said. “So can’t tell you exactly when, but I want to be around a year from now.”

Apple on Wednesday said it created the so-called American Manufacturing Program that includes Corning, Coherent, GlobalWafers, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, Amkor and Broadcom.

The company said it would spend $2.5 billion to fund a major expansion with Corning, which makes glass for iPhones in Kentucky. Apple said that all glass for iPhones and Apple Watches will be manufactured in the U.S. at Corning’s facility.

A gift given by Apple CEO Tim Cook to U.S. President Donald Trump stands on President Trump’s table, as they present Apple’s announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

At the White House, Cook presented Trump with a souvenir based on Corning’s glass.

Apple also said it had a multiyear supply agreement with Coherent to produce lasers for the iPhone’s facial recognition system.

The company said its U.S.-based supply chain would produce more than 19 billion chips for its products this year. That’s including chips made by TSMC in Arizona, Apple said. It also includes U.S.-made wafers from GlobalWafers and chips from Texas Instruments. 

Apple said it would collaborate with Texas Instruments to install additional tools in factories in Utah and Texas. GlobalFoundries, a U.S.-based foundry that manufactures older chips particularly for the U.S. government, will manufacture wireless charging technology in New York for Apple.

The iPhone maker said its goal was to have an “end-to-end” supply chain, which means that every part of the chipmaking process can take place on American soil.

Earlier this year, Apple said it would invest $500 million in a rare earths miner and that it would build AI servers at a factory in Texas.

“Oh, I love that you’re doing this,” Trump said after reading a list of Apple’s announcements.

“President Trump shared some kind words about that work, but he also asked us to think about what more we could commit to doing,” Cook said about Apple’s earlier initial $500 billion commitment. “Mr. President, we took that challenge very seriously.”

Trump has criticized Apple and Cook for not making its smartphones in the U.S., a move that Apple has never signaled that it is likely to make. Experts say that moving production of a high-volume, complicated electronics product like the iPhone to the U.S. would be economically infeasible and could take years.

When asked about the possibility of making the iPhone in the U.S. on Wednesday, Cook said that many of the parts inside the device were made in the U.S.

“If you look at the bulk of it, we’re doing a lot of the semiconductors here, we’re doing the glass here, we’re doing the face ID module here,” Cook said.

Not Apple’s first U.S. commitment

Apple has made similar announcements in the past. In 2018, under pressure during the first Trump administration, Apple committed to spend $350 billion in the U.S. over five years, or about $70 billion per year. In 2021, Apple announced plans to spend $430 billion over five years, or $86 billion per year in the U.S. Wednesday’s announcement has the company at $600 billion over four years, or $125 billion per year. 

Much of what Apple has announced has come to fruition, although the company doesn’t report its U.S. spending on an annual basis and suppliers generally don’t break out how much revenue comes from Apple. 

The company also faces increased tariffs that could hurt its profits. It’s currently paying for tariffs placed on Chinese imports earlier this year, and faces increased import taxes on semiconductors when the Trump Administration finishes a so-called Section 232 investigation.

Trump said on Wednesday that he planned to impose a 100% tariff on semiconductors and chips, but that Apple was exempt because it is committing to build in the U.S.

Apple in May said that the majority of phones it’s selling in the U.S. are assembled in India to avoid Chinese tariffs, and although tariffs on India are going up to 25%, White House sources told CNBC that the iPhone maker will be “largely unaffected” by the India tariffs. Apple said that tariffs could cost the company $1.1 billion in the current quarter. 

In 2017, Apple announced that it was creating a $1 billion manufacturing fund, which would go towards future purchase commitments with U.S. suppliers. Apple raised that to $10 billion earlier this year.  Corning, one of the participants in Wednesday’s announcement, previously got two public commitments from Apple’s manufacturing fund. 

In 2021, Apple said that its U.S. spending was outpacing its initial 2018 announcement. In its initial announcement, the company said it would spend $10 billion on data centers in North Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Iowa. Apple operates data centers in all those states today. 

Apple on Wednesday said it was expanding data centers in North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Oregon. 

WATCH: Apple’s bigger issue continues to be its missing AI, says Wedbush’s Dan Ives

Apple's bigger issue continues to be its missing AI, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

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