Bitfinex Bitcoin theft hacker Ilya Lichtenstein has been released early

The hacker Ilya Lichtenstein from the Bitfinex Bitcoin theft case announced on the X platform that he has been released early, attributing this to the First Step Act signed by President Trump in 2018, which allows prisoners to earn sentence reductions by participating in rehabilitation programs.

It is reported that Lichtenstein was sentenced to 5 years in prison in November 2024 for assisting in the laundering of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (worth about $4.5 billion at the time of the crime), while his wife Heather Morgan (online alias Razzlekhan) was sentenced to 18 months for aiding and abetting the crime and was released in October 2025.