Binance hack: Are customer funds safe? CZ says losses will be covered ‘in all likelihood’
16:48, 10 October 2022
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After the Binance cryptocurrency exchange lost $100m (£90m) in a hack last week, its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), has revealed that the stolen funds will “in all likelihood” be covered and reimbursed to customers.
The native crypto of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, BNB, was down 1.08% to $274.76 on 10 October, according to CoinMarketCap.
A vulnerability on the BNB Chain’s cross-chain bridge, known as the BSC Token Hub, saw roughly $570m (£515m) in BNB targeted by an attacker. However, Zhao said the hacker was only able to escape with around $100m.
Zhao reassured investors via Twitter that the issue was “contained”, and their funds were safe.
An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.
— CZ ???? Binance (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022
‘Something we can learn from’
Because of the hack, the BNB Chain was temporarily halted on 6 October. However, Zhao said the hack was something he himself and Binance could learn from.
After the hack he tweeted “Some setbacks make you stronger. Never waste an opportunity.”
Bitgert (BRISE), replying to Zhao’s tweet, said: “The hack wasn’t a setrback, but a price that you paid for the better future of BNB.”
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‘We own this’
BNB Chain’s official response started with an apology “First, we want to apologize to the community for the exploit that occurred. We own this.”
Binance said that as “decentralised chains are not designed to be stopped”, it had to contact its community validators one by one “to stop the incident from spreading”.
The crypto exchange said that a vote will take place to decide whether or not to freeze or not to freeze the hacked funds or even offer “a bounty for catching the hackers, up to 10% of the recovered funds”.
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