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KripZen

Bitfinex / Crypto Capital

Failure type
Fraud
Date
2018–2019
Reported loss
~$850M in commingled customer and corporate funds (publicly reported estimate)

What happened

Across 2018 and 2019 Bitfinex had roughly $850 million of commingled customer and corporate money sitting with its payment processor, Crypto Capital Corp, whose accounts were seized by authorities in several countries. Affiliated stablecoin issuer Tether's reserves covered the gap; both firms settled with the New York Attorney General for $18.5 million in February 2021 without admitting wrongdoing.

What to take from it

The crypto never moved — the fiat leg did. Ask which outside company actually holds the cash side of an exchange's balance sheet, because that firm's legal problems become yours.

Dates and figures are widely reported public estimates from coverage at the time, not KripZen's own audited data.

Where it sits on the record

The documented exchange failures we track, in the order they happened.

  1. 2014Mt. Gox
  2. 2015Bitstamp
  3. 2016Bitfinex
  4. 2016The DAO
  5. 2017Parity Multisig Wallet Freeze
  6. 2018BitConnect
  7. 2018Coincheck
  8. 2019Binance
  9. 2019Bitfinex / Crypto Capital (You are here)
  10. 2019QuadrigaCX
  11. 2020KuCoin
  12. 2022Celsius Network
  13. 2022Crypto.com
  14. 2022FTX
  15. 2022Ronin Bridge
  16. 2022Terra / LUNA
  17. 2022Three Arrows Capital
  18. 2022Wormhole
  19. 2023HTX (formerly Huobi)
  20. 2024DMM Bitcoin
  21. 2025Bybit