- Early indications are that Binance’s network has been hacked for hundreds of millions of dollars
- According to on-chain analysis by Blockworks’ Research, the attacker, or attackers, have managed to “bridge out” to several other chains, including Avalanche and Polygon
The native token of Binance, BNB Chain, appears to have been hacked for hundreds of millions of dollars in what the cryptocurrency exchange dubbed a “potential exploit.”
Binance on Twitter said it had suspended trading of BNB — which dipped in the single-digits on the news — in relatively short order. BNB was down more than 3% to $283 by 7 p.m. ET.
All other user funds are safe, the exchange said.
Eagle-eyed Twitter users looked to be first to identify roughly two million BNB — more than $566 million — that had been transferred to an apparent attacker’s address who has so far managed to bridge out somewhere in the neighborhood of $110 million.
In a follow-up tweet, Binance said initial estimates for funds taken off BSC were between $70 million and $80 million.
“Thanks to the community and our internal and external security partners, an estimated $7M has already been frozen,” Binance tweeted.
The wallet address, confirmed by Ryan West, a Blockworks’ Research analyst, shows the wallet has transferred roughly $53 million of BNB to ether (ETH), plus $48 million to the Fantom blockchain, as well as additional funds to the Avalanche, Optimism and Polygon protocols.
Roughly $433 million, 80% of the total, remained on the BNB Chain a few hours after the stock market’s closing bell in New York, blockchain analytics firm Halborn told Blockworks.
It would mark the industry’s second-largest hack, following the Axie Infinity Ronin Bridge exploit in March for $625 million.
Binance representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.
According to on-chain analysis, the attacker used the cross-chain bridge protocol Stargate to transfer out.
Binance said it was temporarily pausing its chain due to “irregular activity” and would provide further updates soon.
The same wallet is blacklisted from Tether, per West
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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Source: https://blockworks.co/binance-pauses-trading-of-native-token/