It has been discovered hackers have managed to exchange stolen Bitcoin worth close to $39 million. These funds are reported to be part of a crypto-theft, Bitcoin taken from digital wallets in August 2016. The overall haul from the original Bitfinex crypto exchange hack is estimated to be worth $1.3 billion. The latest development in the matter revealed itself after a portion of the missing Bitcoin showed recent movement.

As reported by Whale Alert in a series of tweets, addresses connected to the original 2016 breach have been associated with 3503 Bitcoin -- roughly $38.7 million -- moved across a dozen transactions. The largest of these transactions was worth approximately $5.2 million, or 476.32 Bitcoin. The smallest was 2.612703 Bitcoin, or $28,849.

Before these transactions, no more than two percent of the stolen funds have seen any exchange. The holding strategy used by the hackers has, according to followers of the activity, been quite effective. At the time of the original heist, the Bitcoin was worth around $72 million. Today, four years later, it’s worth is in the vicinity of $1.3 billion.

Analysts are saying the impact of this size of coins being dumped into the crypto market could create problems. Despite that assessment, pricing in the Bitcoin market was noticeably unaffected after 50 Bitcoin tokens associated with addresses for Satoshi Nakamoto were moved in May of this year.

The staggered movement of the Bitcoin implies the hackers were confronted with roadblocks laundering the digital assets during tightly enforced regulating of the market. A report shortly after May’s activity stated 736 Bitcoin associated with wallets from the hack landed on Hydra, the Russian darknet marketplace. There have also been transactions where original stolen 2016 Bitcoin found itself back at Bitfinex.

At the time, the Bitfinex theft was the biggest theft of Bitcoin over the digital exchange. In 2019, it was reported the government recovered somewhere around $110,000 of the cryptocurrency and returned it to Bitfinex.