If the federal government's story in its successful prosecution is true, when Ilya Lichtenstein hacked the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016 and stole over 119,000 customer bitcoins (worth about $72 million at the time), he couldn't have known he'd committed the most lucrative theft in human history.
But thanks to bitcoin's peculiar volatility, by the time the feds closed in on Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan (convicted of helping him launder the stolen proceeds), in 2022, their haul was worth well over $5 billion. Using some of their insufficiently laundered coins to buy gift cards for guests at their wedding helped doom them.
The Netflix documentary Biggest Heist Ever, about the couple, the theft, the investigation, the arrests, and the prosecution, is fascinated by Morgan's utterly cringe and absurd attempt—while hiding in plain sight despite her role in the huge, highly publicized hack—to launch a rap career as "Razzlekhan." The documentary's focus on her personal peculiarities, as opposed to any peculiarities of bitcoin itself, exemplifies the new age of mainstream respectability the token has entered. The film brings up, but dashes down, old-fashioned notions that bitcoin is just some nutty internet Monopoly funny money, the theft of which should have no particular moral or legal weight.
Bitfinex, still in business, didn't return its customers' bitcoin but instead issued tokens representing a dollar for every dollar of its value on the day of the theft. One on-camera victim is highly unsatisfied; bitcoin's staying power and unique value since 2016 is more than proven.
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