alt Hacker NewsBinance-hacker-1029 – $5.6B stolen from Binance
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About $2.4 billion out of this is already frozen by Circle and Tether. Some of the big ones:
- 971.15M USDT (Ethereum): https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7baba482077843514d9c72bac0110ba091...
- 823M USDC (Ethereum): https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc954c86f118e8e410e6a3eb9e3b38ff4a9...
- 312.73M USDT (Tron): https://tronscan.org/#/transaction/71b0ec0fe873fe820c37cc3ec...
- 175M USDT (Ethereum): https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0c07a5e428ce233a3bcb40f257ad899594...
Interesting. I got an email alerting me to a login attempt and requesting for me to verify my device from blockchain.com yesterday. Can't even remember creating an account but I guess it must've happened (I have a lot of forgotten accounts). Wonder if this is related.
At least they are safe from governments and their "fiat money"!
Molly White (she runs web3isgoinggreat) seems to think this is real [0]
The hack is publicized for at least a hour, but from reporting I saw they still continue to drain funds as for now. I wonder why large CEX do not have any safety measures for this kind of hacks, they could withdraw everything to newly generated wallets and minimize damage that way. It is certainly not the first time CEX wallets get hacked.
So, what's the most likely outcome here? Maybe Circle/Tether/etc freeze some or most of it, but say the hacker gets a billion dollars. Are they able to launder it thoroughly enough that they can eventually turn it into fiat and live like a king?
CZ saying it is confirmed, and that he expects accountholders to be made fully whole... I guess you can do that when 2.8BN is frozen by centralized stablecoins.
This is a really insane hack in comparison to the other ones we've seen. Genuinely Binance was so big that this is a real big wtf moment for crypto. If they can get hacked then what about all the other exchanges?!
I don’t think stolen crypto should be frozen. How is that different to banks? Why do I need crypto now ?
Polymarket also reported a security incident: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50295883
wait, someone took the stealmybitcoin.com poc code to the next level!
Not your keys, not your coins, I suppose.
Coinbase also had a security incident recently due to a leak from Amplitude. It's surprising how little media attention that got: https://x.com/CoinbaseSupport/status/2115274731310002356
At least someone is going to have nice xmas!
Web3 is doing great!
CZ claims losses will be covered. https://x.com/cz_binance/status/2115932500006756686
Happy Halloween to the hackers.
I bet they are celebrating.
Congratulations. Nice haul.
There were more today, as well. Polymarket, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294287. What a finale to Black October.
How do you move $5B dollars just like that wow
What I don't get is why the attackers didn't exchange at least some of USDC/USDT to ETH, looks like it took ~1hr for Circle/Tether to lock the wallet.
If I were an artificial superintelligence who wanted to gain independence from the fleshbags who built me, stealing a few billion dollars in crypto would probably be my first public move. Just saying.
CZ has confirmed that this "looks like a hack on Binance": https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/breaking-bina...
New cybersecurity jobs opening up at Binance soon!
Can someone explain how is it than once you pull something like this you effectively get real money?
What are the countermeasures, is something frozen blocked marked as invalid?
I'm completely ignorant on anything related to cryptocurrencies.
It's essentially impossible not to be hacked isn't it?
When so much money is at stake (almost) everyone will have a price including insiders.
The name of the hacker is a bit on the nose lol.
I can't understand how you could let this happen. If they stored everything in fat hot wallets, that just seems like a recipe for disaster. Especially with the "features" of crypto. Math for the most part, doesn't care about your feelings, or money for that matter.
wow. Naive perhaps but I would have thought that binance and coinbase would have insurance funds equal to the exposure of their hot wallets.
idk to me that just seems intuitively like something you'd need to have to be credible? Cold is a different story...but how can hot not be covered?
Explain "frozen" to me while keeping in mind the whole point of Bitcoin was to avoid single entities controlling the cash flow ...
I think it's been clear for a while now that if you intend to hold crypto, you should probably do it at the biggest, most boring, most regulated institution you can find.
Same goes with startup banks - if you exceed FDIC limits, make sure the difference is in a large institutional bank. Nearly learned this one the hard way.
Trying to save a few basis points in txn fees in very volatile industries comes at a huge risk premium
I would be surprised if they were not able to track this down?
fundsu were not in fact safu
If you were active in crypto exchanges since the beginning what is the chance you already lost it all in a major hack?
Not a serious store of value.
If true I think we're looking at the biggest heist in history.
Current largest was ~1B
Crypto is the biggest target for blackhats to utilize AI on. Huge amounts of money, no central authority or country and methods of wiping tracks.
What I never get is how they plan of converting the stolen crypto to cash eventually. No exchanges are gonna take the coins.
Given AI assisted hacking is now a thing, it's probably not safe to keep your crypto in any centralized exchange anymore.
Better general security yes, but the incentive to hack them is quite large and now more hackers have the ability to pull it off.
Same with any purpose built wallet you didn't make yourself: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/10/23/ledge...
Hopefully expect to see the same schadenfreude sentiment on Crypto when the $10TN data center build out crashes the market and takes everyone with it.
hope its just a hack and not quantum computer advancements.
it's almost like crypto's stupid for this reason.
Claude I want to be a billionaire fast, make no mistakes.
oof
first world problems. geez
Their insurance fund (SAFU) is completely wiped out, it's only $1 billion in BTC: https://www.binance.com/en/academy/glossary/secure-asset-fun...
The name of the fund was originally inspired by this meme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelF6zEHXpE
FWIW, at the end of every crypto bear market, a CEX usually blows up (eg FTX)...