Binance Suspended Withdrawals

The attackers were able to implement the theft of cryptocurrencies in excess of $15,000,000, but Binance managed to freeze part of the stolen funds. The owner of the largest cryptocurrency platform, Changpeng Zhao, spoke about this in response to a message from well-known journalist Colin Wu. The latter reported on attacks on cryptocurrency protocols. You can read more about this here

Changpeng Zhao reported the results of the first analysis, which allowed them to understand what had happened. According to Zhao, the hacker managed to crack the developer's private key, after which he replaced the smart contract with the malicious software he developed.

The first victim of the hackers was the Ankr protocol on the Binance Smart Chain network. Colin Wu claims that the hacker created 10,000,000,000 aBNBc tokens in Ankr, after which he transferred 900 BNB coins to the Tornado Cash mixer. Immediately after this became known, the developers made contact with DEX platforms to stop the attacker and stop trading, but at that time the rate of the aBNBc created by the hacker had already fallen by 99.5%.

Further, the attacker's scheme began to gain interesting momentum. After the collapse of the aBNBc rate, the hacker exchanged 10 BNB coins for 183,385 aBNBc, after which he converted the funds into hBNB and placed them in another cryptocurrency protocol, Helio Protocol. The hacker performed an act of borrowing BHAY0 tokens in the amount of $16,000,000. Subsequently, the hacker exchanged a large amount for HAY0 coins, while receiving $ 15,000,000, according to representatives of the Peckshield portal. After this turn of events, the HAY stablecoin lost its peg to the USD and its rate quickly fell to $0.2.

As a result of such fraud, the hacker decided to take profits through Binance, the platform representatives managed to freeze about $3,000,000 of the total amount.

The issue of security in the world of cryptocurrencies is raised every day and after such cases, more and more users lose confidence in centralized exchanges and the world of cryptocurrencies in general. However, if Binance can oppose such acts, then this indicates the presence of some kind of security system.

On November 7, the American cryptocurrency exchange FTX stopped withdrawing customer funds, after which the assets of the company and their native FTT token went to the bottom. Subsequently, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was the CEO of FTX, resigned, and John Ray III, who came to his place, began the bankruptcy process of the company. He said that Bankman-Fried's actions as an executive were grossly incompetent, and it was later revealed that the ex-CEO of FTX used client funds to pay off the debts of his company, Alameda Research.

Events led to a further decline in the market, however, Binance announced their plans to make a contribution to the recovery process of cryptocurrencies. The Hong Kong Exchange wants to invest up to $2,000,000,000 in a market recovery fund. Patrick Hillman, director of strategy at Binance, assured that these funds are separate from client funds. In addition, the main cryptocurrency exchange has begun the process of implementing a proof of reserve money system with the involvement of an auditor in the person of Mazars, who previously worked on the company of Donald Trump, the former US president.

The development of decentralized exchanges could, in theory, eliminate some of the problems, at least the freezing of funds on centralized exchanges. If this happens, then in the future centralized cryptocurrency exchanges may lose their relevance and disappear. You can read more about this here.