WikiBit Exchange Exit Risk Rankings #46: Bitfinex — The U.S. Government Holds 94,636 BTC. Who Really Owns the Money at This 14-Year-Old Exchange?

Introduction: A Veteran Exchange That Refuses to Die　　In our first 45 installments, we investigated a range of exchanges, from HashKey to BingX. For Episode 46, were examining a true fossil from the early days of crypto: Bitfinex.　　Its résumé puts it among the industrys most established players: founded in 2012, 14 years of operating history, one of the worlds earliest cryptocurrency exchanges, a sister company of Tether, the issuer of USDT, and the legal claimant to 94,636 BTC seized by the U.S. government. Its parent company, iFinex, operates both Bitfinex and Tether. It holds a full Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) license in El Salvador and supports more than 270 cryptocurrencies. Sounds like a seasoned, technically sophisticated exchange, doesnt it？　　But theres another side to the story. In 2016, Bitfinex suffered a hack that resulted in the theft of 119,755 BTC, worth nearly $10 billion at current prices. In 2021, the CFTC fined it for illegally offering off-exchange retail commodity transactions. That same year, the New York Attorney General fined Bitfinex and Tether $18.5 million over allegations of misrepresenting their reserves. Its Trustpilot rating is just 1.6/5, with users complaining about withdrawals being locked for five days and customer support requiring two