“Bitfinex is offering a reward to any persons that connect us with hackers responsible for the unauthorized transfer of almost 120,000 bitcoins from the exchange in August 2016,” said the company in a statement. “We will reward anyone with information that can put us in direct contact with those responsible for the 2016 security breach at Bitfinex,” said Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino. “The hackers will receive a share of the returned property.” Today, BTC trades at around $11,000, but was worth only $650 in August 2016 — meaning the value of the stolen cryptocurrency has risen by roughly 1600% since the attack. In February last year, authorities recovered 27.6 of the pilfered BTC, currently worth a little more than $300,000. [Read: Bitfinex denies role in spooky transfer of $1.37 million in stolen Bitcoin] Effectively, Bitfinex hopes 30% of the total funds stolen will be enough to entice the hacker(s) (or anyone connected to them) to come forward. Bitfinex explained the exact stipulations of the reward: For what it’s worth, Bitfinex tried the whole monetary reward thing directly following the attack, when it offered $3.5 million (around 6,000 BTC at the time) to anyone who could point them in the right direction. Any payments made to those connecting Bitfinex will work to ensure this can be done securely, thereby protecting the identities of all parties, and Bitfinex reserves the right to impose conditions on any transfers in order to verify claims and ensure a secure process. Back then, that represented roughly 5% of the value of the stolen Bitcoin, but it was considerably more than today’s offer, at least in terms of US dollars. Not sure if today’s $400 million reward is going to bring out the snitches.
