US hacker who stole around one billion dollars in bitcoin jailed for five years

Bitcoin logos are displayed at the Inside Bitcoins conference and trade show in New York in 2014 (Mark Lennihan/AP)

A US computer expert who stole bitcoin worth billions of dollars at current prices and then spent years laundering some of the hacked cryptocurrency with help from his wife has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Ilya Lichtenstein masterminded one of the largest-ever thefts from a virtual currency exchange before he and his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, carried out an elaborate scheme to liquidate the stolen funds, according to prosecutors.