Ilya Lichtenstein, who was sentenced to five years in prison in November 2024 after pleading guilty to charges linked to the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange hack in 2016, was released from prison after only 14 months behind bars.
“Thank you to the president [Donald] Trump’s First Step Act, I’ve been released from prison early,” Lichtenstein said on X Thursday. “I remain committed to making a positive impact on cybersecurity as soon as I can.”
Trump signed the First Step Act, a prison and sentencing reform bill proposed and approved by lawmakers in 2018 that was ostensibly intended to save taxpayers money.
Thanking his supporters and criticizing his “haters,” Lichtenstein wrote, “I look forward to proving you wrong,” while reiterating that he “remains committed to making a positive impact on cybersecurity.”
While some congratulated Lichtenstein on X, others were less forgiving. An onchain investigator who goes by Specter on X posted a meme saying “crime is legal” while CB32 asked “how much did you pay?” And Cryptoenthusiast asked: “Where is the 120,000 stolen from Bitfinex?”
Lichtenstein and his wife, rapper Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan, were arrested in February 2022. Morgan received an 18-month sentence and was released in October after serving about eight months.
The August 2016 Bitfinex hack resulted in the theft of 119,754 BTC, worth approximately $71 million at the time, but more than $10 billion at current prices. Authorities recovered about 94,000 BTC, and in January 2025, US prosecutors filed a request for the recovered BTC to be returned to Bitfinex.
Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy and admitted to the crypto asset hack. He also claimed that his wife had nothing to do with the crime. He managed to convert about 25,000 BTC into other cryptocurrencies and into physical gold coins, the majority of which the US government recovered, according to a TRM report.
Lichtenstein’s release comes as President Trump’s use of executive pardons in crypto-related cases has drawn criticism, although Lichtenstein himself was not pardoned. Between January and October, Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, Arthur Hayes and three other BitMex exchange co-founders convicted of Bank Secrecy Act violations, and Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering at the world’s largest exchange.
