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Binance Reports Security Issue, Bitcoin Prices Fall
Confirmed
In Short: Binance reported a security issue that resulted in the theft of over $6 billion in crypto assets, causing bitcoin prices to drop.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, reported a security breach that resulted in the theft of over $6 billion in crypto assets, potentially making it the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.
According to Nicolas Quatravaux, head of EMEA at Paradigm, the first big trade hit at 20:38 UTC, about 15 minutes after the first outflows from Binance’s wallet and before the news was public.
Bitcoin prices fell more than 3% to a six-week low of $76,368, while ether dropped more than 3% to $2,178, its lowest level in two months.
The hack involved a wallet labeled 'Binance 14' being delegated via a relatively new Ethereum feature known as EIP-7702 to an outside smart contract.
Blockchain intelligence platforms were tracking 55 separate addresses under the entity label 'binance-hacker-1029,' with combined holdings valued at approximately $5.78 billion.
Binance co-founder Yi He pledged that the company would cover all losses resulting from the attack, and the company is working with authorities to determine what happened.
Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed that the company had frozen over 1.567 billion USDT linked to the potential hack at Binance.
Conor Grogan, a senior director at Coinbase, estimated that as much as $5.8 billion, or approximately 8 trillion won, in assets may have been transferred out of Binance's hot wallets.
Among major cryptocurrencies, Ethereum (ETH) is up around 5.6% over the past day at $2,717, while XRP (XRP) has gained 7.8% at $1.49, and Solana (SOL) is up 7.2% at $115.75.
Bitcoin positions accounted for $360.7 million in liquidations, with the largest single liquidation order on Binance's BTCUSDT market, valued at $11.3 million.
What this adds
The security breach at Binance has led to a significant drop in bitcoin prices, but other cryptocurrencies have shown mixed results with some experiencing gains.
What's confirmed
- "It does look like a hack on Binance," Zhao wrote on X.
What's still developing
- “The contracts were purchased with $BTC around $80.15K, and by the night price was trading right at that strike. Selling the 80K calls at the same time capped any participation in further upside,” it said.
- “The buying sits close to the current price, at strikes of $74,000 to $78,000, mostly expiring this week and in mid-November,” Quatravaux noted.
- The busiest hour came before Binance had said anything and included two 1,000 $BTC blocks of mid-November $74,000 puts, totaling about $155 million in notional value.
- The insurance in question is a put option, which gives the buyer the right to sell bitcoin at a predetermined price.
- “So not everyone was playing defense,” Quatravaux noted.
- Issued on: 30/10/2026 - 14:52 Modified: 30/10/2026 - 14:54 Hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, in a record digital asset theft.
- TRM said some of the funds had already been posted as collateral to borrow ether and estimated that about $2.4 billion worth of bitcoin and ether is beyond reach.
- AI-powered investigations company TRM Labs said in a report several elements of the Binance attack resembled earlier incidents linked to the territory, including a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) hack on the ByBit exchange in 2025.
- As of 9:20 a.m. on Oct. 30, Bitcoin was trading at $77,241, down 4.84% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin trades around $76,676 at press time on Friday, retaining a bearish near-term bias below the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $80,556 while holding just above the 200-day EMA at $76,457.
- On July 26, 2021, the SC reprimanded Binance for continuing to operate illegally in Malaysia and ordered it to cease its operations, including disabling its website and mobile applications for Malaysian users.
- Circle CEO and co-founder Jeremy Allaire said in a post on X that the company had frozen more than $800 million worth of currency linked to the incident “in coordination with law enforcement”.