Key Insights
- The recent crypto market crash followed reports of a possible $5.8 billion Binance hack.
- Bitcoin price plunged over 3%, while Ethereum crypto fell over 4%.
- Circle and Tether reported freezing USDC and USDT linked to the incident.
The crypto market crash followed a reported $5.8 billion Binance hack, sending Bitcoin, Ether, BNB, XRP, and Solana lower.
The incident drew responses from Binance shareholder Changpeng Zhao, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz, and the X account 0xQuit.
Zhao said customer funds were safe and expected full coverage. He also noted that he no longer manages Binance.com.
Crypto Market Crash Hits Bitcoin Price and Major Tokens
Meanwhile, crypto market crash data showed declines across most leading cryptos. Bitcoin price was at $79,082.60, down 3.3% over 24 hours and 3.2% over seven days. Its one-hour change was nearly flat.
Beyond Bitcoin price, Ether traded at $2,200, down around 5% daily and about 6% weekly. Among the listed altcoins, BNB had the largest daily decline at 8%. XRP fell more than 7%, while Solana dropped about 6%. Over seven days, Solana lost 7%, XRP declined 5%, and BNB fell 4.7%.
Despite the crypto market crash, TRON rose 7.7% in one hour, and its weekly gain reached 0.4%.
Circle and Tether Report Freezes After Binance Hack
As the crypto market crash continued, BNB’s Changpeng Zhao acknowledged reported freezes by Tether and Circle. His initial update cited approximately $971 million frozen by Tether and $823 million by Circle. He said he expected Binance users’ funds to receive full coverage, although he no longer managed the exchange. Notably, Binance also confirmed about the hack.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Allaire said Circle was tracking reports of a possible exploit and coordinating with law enforcement. Circle had frozen more than $800 million in USDC associated with the incident. Allaire also said the company would continue supporting the investigation.
Paolo Ardoino later reported that Tether had frozen more than $1.567 billion in USDT connected to the potential Binance hack. Zhao responded by thanking Ardoino for the action. These figures came from separate updates by the executives.
Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said that, if confirmed, the incident would rank among the largest crypto hacks. He also said it could be the largest cyberattack across the internet. Mumtaz added that Binance had enough resources to make affected users whole.
0xQuit Outlines Binance Hack and the Transaction Sequence
0xQuit, an X account with over 112,000 followers, valued the reported transactions at about $2.5 billion. However, a latest report showed that the amount went to as high as $5.8 billion and how a relayer used malicious EIP-7702 code to transfer assets from Binance wallets, including 780 million USDC and 28,005.6 ETH.
The pool later sent 195,460 ETH to a new address that still held the funds. 0xQuit said Tornado Cash withdrawals funded the relayer and suggested the authorization signatures may have been obtained through phishing, while noting the method remained unclear and North Korean involvement was unconfirmed.
Recent Crypto Scam Incidents
Amid the recent crypto market crash, several crypto security incidents have been reported. A physical supply-chain attack targeting Ledger hardware wallets led to more than $95 million in cryptocurrency being stolen.
On October 1, NEAR Intents suspended its cross-chain trading service while engineers investigated an exploit. The team attributed the loss to a bug in its Omni deposit and withdrawal integration, said it had patched the contract flaw, and pledged to reimburse affected users in full.
Revolut also faced reports of a September breach, in which attackers allegedly impersonated a government agency to access a database. Later reports said some of the stolen information had been exposed, including user know-your-customer data.
