The 2019 MacBook Pro used by the IRS to track and seize $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex is now in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. At the time, the Department of Justice press release It touted the recovery of stolen BTC as the “largest financial seizure in history.”
The National Numismatic Collection (NNC) is dedicated to documenting historical developments related to the monetary system of the United States. Collection curator Ellen Feingold said the laptop captures a “shift” in public knowledge about Bitcoin traceability.
That's why this laptop is on display in the Smithsonian's “The Value of Money” gallery, along with seashells, tea, stones, silver, and gold. Feingold himself freely admits that the MacBook Pro looks out of place, at least at first glance.
“For me, the laptop and the cryptocurrencies it represents, contextualized within the diversity of forms of money over the past 4000 years, are not so much a radical break from the past as humans’ comparisons with the world. “It looks like a continuation of defining and redefining values around them,” the curators wrote. smithsonian magazine.
monday, heather morgan, also called girlfriend Another name for rap: “Razurkan”— Sentenced to 18 months in U.S. federal prison for his role in the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Prosecutors say Morgan deserves a much lighter sentence than her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who stole 119,000 bitcoins in 2016 and asked Morgan to help launder the money years later. Recommended.
Just last week, Lichtenstein was sentenced to five years in prison.
In 2016, many myths about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin were ingrained in the public consciousness. One was that Bitcoin was untraceable and completely anonymous, but the IRS, which seized stolen BTC, proved otherwise.
IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent Chris Janczewski used the aforementioned 2019 MacBook Pro to track funds across the blockchain. Agents were able to identify the culprit after the funds were transferred to multiple exchanges. This led to a search of their homes. This is where investigators found the keys to the wallet where most of the stolen funds were kept.
The case attracted a lot of public attention, not only because of the amount of money stolen, but also because of the personality of the perpetrator.
This was largely due to Morgan's surrealist career as an internet rapper under the alias Lazulkan. Her songs were full of sensational lyrics such as “The spirit of a revolutionary, the power of a dictator'' and “Do you really want to hit me?'' Since I was 15 years old, I have always felt guilty. ”
Nickname is “”Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde”, a number of major streaming services have announced plans to retell the story in an upcoming documentary. But this is not the important detail for the Smithsonian Institution.
“The real story for me is how [this] “This incident helps reframe our understanding of cryptocurrencies from anonymous to pseudo-anonymous forms of exchange,” Feingold explained. “Although most people can still conduct transactions using cryptocurrencies without sharing their details with family or banks, criminals rely on cryptocurrencies to hide their crimes and protect themselves from prosecution. You can't.
Edited by Stacey Elliott.
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