The cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance confirmed on Thursday October 29 that it had been the victim of a major hack, the damage of which is estimated at some 6.3 billion dollars. After falling by almost 5% at the end of the American session, bitcoin recovered and lost only 0.83% around 6 a.m., while ether showed a slight decline of 0.81%.
In this context, the prices of all major cryptocurrencies briefly declined, with the exception of stablecoins which can, by definition, only fluctuate within very small margins, while BNB, a cryptocurrency issued by Binance, rebounded by 2.67% after having melted by almost 10%.
This amount may continue to increase as our teams work closely with authorities, issuers, data analytics companies and industry partners to identify and freeze additional assets that may have been targeted, Binance added.
For several hours before the official confirmation, several specialists had claimed that pirates had entered the platform.
This amount representative of the attack is estimated at four times the amount stolen to date in the largest cyberattack of this type, causing immediate repercussions on the financial markets.
Half of the funds were frozen to prevent massive theft, with the platform specifying in a press release that it had worked with partners specializing in blockchain to freeze the assets concerned, i.e. around $3 billion frozen on-chain so far. The price of bitcoin fell sharply overnight from Thursday to Friday after the first rumors of a massive cyberattack on the platform, a few hours before Binance confirmed the incident around 12:30 a.m. Friday.
The platform later said on its Latin America X account that the total amount impacted was approximately $6.3 billion.