A Russian-American man who hacked the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and stole about 120,000 bitcoins said he was released early thanks to a bipartisan prison reform law signed by President Donald Trump.
Ilya Lichtenstein, 38, was sentenced to five years in prison in November 2024 after pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy and admitting to hacking crypto assets worth billions of dollars.
But late Thursday night, a post on Lichtenstein’s official X account declared, “Thanks to President Trump’s First Step Act, I was released from prison early.”
A courtroom sketch of Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein pleading guilty to laundering stolen Bitcoin in federal court in Washington.
Artist: William Hennessy
“I remain committed to making a positive impact on cybersecurity as quickly as possible,” Lichtenstein’s post said.
“To all the supporters, thank you so much. To all the haters, I look forward to proving you wrong.”
A Trump administration official told CNBC on Friday morning that Lichtenstein “has served a significant portion of his sentence and is currently under house arrest in accordance with the statute and Bureau of Prisons policy.”
Mr. Lichtenstein’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his release.
Lichtenstein’s wife, Heather Morgan, who has also pleaded guilty to helping launder the stolen funds, shared Lichtenstein’s message on her X account, saying, “The best New Year’s gift for me was that my husband finally came home after four years of separation.”
Morgan’s tweet, posted two minutes after Lichtenstein’s, included a photo of the couple smiling in a selfie.
Lichtenstein’s sentence includes time already spent in custody after his arrest in 2022, more than five years after Bitfinex was hacked.
As of Friday morning, a search for Lichtenstein’s name using the federal government’s inmate search website returned one result indicating that Lichtenstein was scheduled to be released on Feb. 9.
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment.
Book photos of Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein.
Provided by: Alexandria Adult Detention Center.
Morgan, 35, a rapper who releases music under the name “Razurkan” and is also known as the “Wall Street Crocodile,” was sentenced to 18 months in prison shortly after Lichtenstein was sentenced.
She went to prison in February. But on October 26, Morgan posted a video of himself saying he had been released early.
She also thanked President Trump.
“Hey Razzlers, I’ve missed you,” Morgan says in the video, in which she’s in the bathtub wearing only a hair towel.
“I’m so happy to be back. I want to shout out to Papa Trump for shortening my 18-month sentence,” she said. An email sent to Morgan’s manager was not immediately returned.
Trump signed the First Step Act in December 2018 during his first term as president. The bill aimed to reduce the size of the federal prison population through a series of reforms, including establishing a “risk and needs assessment system” that would give some inmates the opportunity for early release to home confinement.
It is unclear whether Trump or the White House was directly involved in securing early release for Lichtenstein or Morgan. But the Bitcoin hacker and his wife’s announcement follows a number of high-profile cybercrime-related pardons and clemency since the crypto-friendly president returned to office.
The day after the inauguration, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the infamous dark web market Silk Road.
In October, President Trump pardoned Zhao Changpeng, the founder of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering on the platform.
