In an absolutely stunning twist, Ilya Lichtenstein—the modern-day alchemist who turned cryptocurrency into a prison sentence—found his redemption not through complex hashing algorithms, but via a legislative ‘hash’ tag. Yes, dear readers, the notorious Bitfinex hack convict has been granted an early taste of freedom, thanks to the ineffable quirk known as the U.S. First Step Act.

Like a crypto whale breaking free from its digital cage, Ilya broke the news on X, the platform known for its commitment to ‘X-ceptional’ discourse. Lichtenstein, with the grace of a libertarian gazelle, thanked the First Step Act, a legislative miracle possibly written during a wifi outage at Mar-a-Lago, and erroneously attributed to none other than the U.S. President Donald Trump. Sorry, Elon, this time you can’t take credit.

Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which firmly believes in keeping its facilities ‘bug-free’, confirmed our hero’s release. Some say his early parole is akin to finding a Bitcoin in your laundry; others are convinced he’s the proud owner of the key—private key, of course—to the prison’s backdoor. As with any hack, the line between genius and utter chaos remains as thin as a blockchain’s newest hard fork.