Several analysts were ecstatic that BTC might witness a steady surge in its price and touch the $50,000 value if the recent momentum continues.
Not only Bitcoin but Bitfinex-backed LEO has also been one of the major gainers recently. LEO saw a surge of a whopping 46% recently. The massive increase occurred after the United States federal officials undertook a crucial operation recently. These officials managed to recover around $3.6 billion worth of BTC during the operation. The amount was tied to Bitfinex but was hacked from the cryptocurrency exchange in 2016.
On February 9, the value of the token experienced an unprecedented high while traders forecasted that there could be a crisis in the supply of the token in the market. The token was introduced in 2016 to refinance the crypto exchange. The sad part was that it lost a whopping $70 million worth of Bitcoin in the 2016 hacking incident.
The DOJ recovered 80% of the hacked Bitcoin
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on February 8 that it seized over $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin amounting to approximately 94,000 BTC.
Bitfinex reiterated its intention to utilize the seized funds to burn LEO tokens and also to buyback. The crypto exchange also mentioned they intended to implement this process within 1.5 years from the time they receive the amount. The DOJ officials told the media about their plan to start a court process for helping the victims reclaim their stolen Bitcoin funds.
