US court on Monday has postponed the hearing of the Bitfinex $4.5 billion hack as federal prosecutors are working on discussions regarding "possible resolutions of the case short of trial," Reuters has learned.
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Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were due to testify in a federal court this Friday, but the new turn in the case shows the parties are still negotiating a possible plea deal as the hearing has been postponed until August 2.
Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested by the FBI in February 2022 in Manhattan over charges related to laundering cryptocurrency stolen from Bitfinex in 2016. As part of the operation, the FBI seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency.
Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen from Bitfinex after a hacker breached the exchange's systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions. Those unauthorized transactions sent the stolen cryptocurrency to a digital wallet under Lichtenstein’s control.
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