A $568 Million Hack of Binance Coin Reignites Crypto Sector Unrest
A $568 million theft impacting Binance Coin is the latest in a succession of security events to batter digital assets, making an already poor year for cryptocurrencies much worse.
According to the billionaire co-founder of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, an exploit took place on a bridge connecting blockchains. Still, the problem is “contained now,” Zhao wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Blockchain data, according to security experts at cryptocurrency businesses BlockSec and Paradigm, showed that two million Binance Coin (abbreviated as BNB) tokens had been stolen in two transactions. At the current value of the virtual currency, that would be almost $568 million.
According to BlockSec Chief Executive Officer Yajin Zhou, almost $87 million was transferred out of the Binance ecosystem, but the hacker was unable to steal the remaining money since the Binance Smart Chain was shut down. Later, the blockchain was restarted. According to Zhou, the remaining tokens are still in the hacker’s wallet but are locked on the Binance network.
In a previous tweet, Binance’s Zhao stated that the incident’s “effect estimate” was in the neighbourhood of $100 million. A representative for the BNB Chain, which is supported by Binance, indicated that at least $7 million of the stolen money had already been blocked.
This year, crypto attacks cost almost $2 billion, and many were carried out by organisations with ties to North Korea. Cross-chain bridges that move tokens across blockchains are often attacked, making them a serious weakness.
The Binance ecosystem is one of the most well-known to be impacted. On Twitter, Zhao stated that “Binance would most likely cover whatever fund that the hackers got away with.”
The BNB Chain said that it is collaborating with security agencies to halt the transmission of stolen money. As of 7:40 a.m. in London, Binance Coin was trading at about $284 after losing as much as 3.3% on Friday.
The native cryptocurrency of BNB Chain is called Binance Coin, which was introduced in 2017 through an ICO. Its foundation was the Ethereum network initially.
A $2 trillion downturn and an endless stream of cyberattacks have both severely damaged the cryptocurrency industry. The latter has grown to be a major issue; as an example, on Friday, envoys from South Korea, the US, and Japan decided to step up efforts to stop North Korea from funding its nuclear and missile programs through crypto theft.
The broader cryptocurrency markets welcomed the most recent events. On Friday, Bitcoin’s price barely moved and stood a little around $20,000.
