Customers battle to regain billions in bitcoin the DOJ recovered in its largest seizure of stolen crypto

Published

2 years ago

October 20, 2022

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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.”

Technology

USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Published

6 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The S1 lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.

While the filing does not yet disclose the number of shares or a price range, sources told Fortune that Circle plans to move forward with a public filing in late April and is targeting a market debut as early as June.

JPMorgan Chase and Citi are reportedly serving as lead underwriters, and the company is seeking a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion, according to Fortune.

This marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior SPAC merger with Concord Acquisition Corp collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance — including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York City.

Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

Published

7 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.

Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.

Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.

“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.

A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company.

In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.

But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.

That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable.

During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.

But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.

With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.

WATCH: Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business

Technology

Meta’s head of AI research announces departure

Published

9 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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Meta's head of AI research announces departure

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company.

Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30.

Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.

Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.

“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”

Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.

Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images

Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps.

She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.

Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.

Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February.

“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.”

Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”

WATCH: Meta awaits antitrust fine from EU