Binance hacked! $560M Binance Smart Chain Hack is explained in this article. Hackers hacked a bridge connecting blockchains, but the situation is now “contained,” according to the CEO of Binance. 2 million Binance Coins (BNB), worth $566 million, have been stolen by hackers from the Binance Bridge.
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 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022
What is Binance Hack? Binance Smart Chain hacked
Binance Hack appears to have begun today at 2:30 PM EST, when the attacker’s wallet received two transactions totaling a combined 1,000,000 BNB.
Soon after, the hacker started distributing some of the money across many liquidity pools in an effort to convert the BNB into other assets.
At 6:19 PM EST, Binance acknowledged the security breach and paused the BNB Smart Chain while they looked into it.
The CEO of Binance tweeted at 7:51 PM EST that the Binance Smart Chain had been suspended after an exploit was utilized to transfer BNB to the attacker in the BSC Token Hub.
The current impact estimate is around $100m USD equvilent, about a quarter of the last BNB burn.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 7, 2022
Binance estimates that approximately $100m USD was taken off-chain, even though most of the stolen money is still on the BNB Smart Chain and is, therefore no longer available to the hacker.
According to Bloomberg, over $2 billion has been stolen through cryptocurrency hacks this year, many of which were carried out by organizations with ties to North Korea. A common target has been cross-chain bridges used to move tokens between blockchains.
Hacking incidents and a sell-off that eliminated about $2 trillion in value of digital assets have both had a significant negative influence on cryptocurrencies.
Binance Smart Chain paused
After more than $500 million in BNB, the native token of the Binance ecosystem was drained from the official bridge, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) was suspended.
Due to irregular activity we're temporarily pausing BSC. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates here.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) October 6, 2022
With $14.7 billion in trade activity over the last 24 hours, Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Deposits and withdrawals on BSC have been halted. The $430M in BNB still on BSC will likely stay unreachable as a result, leaving the hacker with about $100M in assets on other chains.
Stolen BNB was estimated to be worth $100M. The attacker next borrowed 150M in stablecoins by depositing BNB into Venus, a lending mechanism on BSC.
According to DeBank, the attacker later bridged portions of those assets to several other chains; as of 8 p.m. ET, there were $53 million in assets on Ethereum and about $49 million on Fantom.
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BNB price
BNB experienced a 5% drop once the hack was made public, though it has since partially recovered. At the time of writing, the BNB price is 285 USD.
What is Binance?
In terms of the daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies, Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It was established in 2017 and has Cayman Islands registration.
Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously produced high-frequency trading software, launched Binance. CEO Changpeng Zhao established Fusion Solutions in Shanghai in 2005; it developed high-frequency trading systems for stockbrokers. He became the third employee of the bitcoin wallet team at Blockchain.info in 2013. Additionally, he spent less than a year as CTO at OKCoin, a platform for spot trading between fiat currency and digital assets. Initially established in China, Binance later relocated its headquarters there as a result of the country’s escalating regulation of cryptocurrencies.
What is Binance Smart Chain?
A new network called Binance Smart Chain seeks to reduce transaction costs and offer a place for the development of DApps and other DeFi goods.
What is BNB?
Binance Coin (BNB) and BinanceUSD are two cryptocurrencies that the firm has released over its history (BUSD). In July 2017, BNB was introduced. It debuted in September 2020 as a Binance Smart Chain (BSC) token after beginning as an Ethereum token. Later, BSC and the older Binance Chain combined, and the BNB chain was born. The “Proof of Staked Authority” system used by BNB Chain combines proofs of stake and proofs of authority. There are 21 authorized validators. The third-highest market capitalization cryptocurrency as of 2021 was Binance Coin. Users of Binance can use BNB to pay fees on its exchange.
BSC is compatible with the Ethereum virtual computer and enables smart contracts (EVM).
Concerning Binance Smart Chain’s degree of centralization, which gave rise to a number of network attacks, there have been many complaints.
