At the time of the theft, that amount of bitcoin was worth about $71 million. But the cryptocurrency has appreciated so much in the years since that the total value is now around $4.5 billion. Federal officials said they were able to seize about 94,000 of the stolen bitcoin, with an estimated value of $3.6 billion
The case marks the largest single seizure of funds in the Justice Department history, officials said, and is the most high-profile prosecution to emerge from the agency’s newly-announced effort to investigate crimes involving cryptocurrency.