Binance suffers historic $6.3 billion security breach and pauses withdrawals
AKIPRESS.COM –
A massive data breach at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion in compromised assets, marking what analysts describe as potentially the largest crypto heist in history.
Binance reported that it has collaborated with industry partners to freeze around $3 billion in affected assets thus far. While the exchange provided no immediate updates on the remaining $3.3 billion, Binance co-founder Yi He pledged that the company will fully cover all losses stemming from the security incident.
Initial findings indicate the breach originated from a compromised laptop belonging to a company engineer, enabling unauthorized withdrawal transactions.
Asian financial markets reacted swiftly to the news on Friday. Bitcoin fell over 3% to a six-week low of $76,368, while Ethereum dropped over 3% to a two-month low of $2,178. Binance’s native BNB token slid 5% over 24 hours to $709.70, according to CoinGecko.
Shares of Coinbase Global fell 4.8%, and Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) dropped nearly 6% in extended U.S. trading.
Industry experts and analytics firms, including Chainalysis, warned that the fallout could reshape risk perceptions regarding centralized exchanges. HashKey Group Senior Researcher Tim Sun noted that the incident may further suppress risk appetite amid an already pressured market. To contain the damage, Binance temporarily suspended all deposits and withdrawals to audit wallet infrastructure alongside law enforcement, while stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, along with Ripple and World Liberty Financial, froze hundreds of millions in linked assets.
