A $568 Million Binance Coin Hack Shakes the Crypto Sector Again

On Friday, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the billionaire co-founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, tweeted that an exploit had happened on a bridge connecting blockchains and that the problem had been “contained.”

Two million Binance Coin (commonly known as BNB) tokens were hacked in two separate transactions, according to blockchain data analysed by security experts from crypto companies BlockSec and Paradigm. That is comparable to almost $568 million at current virtual currency pricing.

Yajin Zhou, chief executive officer of BlockSec, said that the Binance Smart Chain was disabled, preventing the hacker from stealing the remaining cash. Later, the blockchain was restarted. The remaining tokens are in the hacker’s wallet, but they have been locked on the Binance network, according to Zhou.

Zhao of Binance previously said on Twitter that the “effect estimate” of the event was about $100 million. A representative for the Binance-backed BNB Chain said that at least $7 million in stolen money had been blocked.

This year, almost $2 billion has been lost to crypto attacks, many of which were done by entities with ties to North Korea. Cross-chain bridges, which are used to move tokens across blockchains, are a frequent target, which makes them a significant vulnerability.

The Binance ecosystem is one of the most prominent to be impacted. Zhao said on Twitter that “Binance would likely reimburse any funds that are stolen by hackers.”

BNB Chain said that it is collaborating with security agencies to halt the flow of stolen cash. As of 7:40 a.m. local time in London, Binance Coin was trading at roughly $284 after falling as high as 3.3% on Friday.

Binance Coin, the native currency of BNB Chain, was introduced in 2017 through an initial coin offering. Initially, it was built on the Ethereum network.

The cryptocurrency industry has been hammered by a $2 trillion decline and a multitude of thefts. The latter has become a worldwide worry; on Friday, envoys from South Korea, the United States, and Japan pledged to redouble their efforts to prevent crypto theft from funding North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

The crypto markets as a whole took recent events in stride. Friday’s Bitcoin price stayed mostly unchanged at slightly about $20,000.