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In the cryptocurrency world, theft has become a recurring problem across platforms, and Binance has become the latest victim of a major theft.
The report
A Binance spokesperson announced on Friday that a blockchain connected to Binance suffered a $570 million hack last week.
On Thursday, the cryptocurrency exchange tweeted that Binance had temporarily suspended BNB Smart Chain, its blockchain network.
The company claimed the suspension was the result of inappropriate activity on the platform.
Binance released a statement later on Friday claiming that hackers stole two million BNB cryptocurrency tokens.
The tokens were worth $570 million at the time.
Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, first tweeted that about $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies had been stolen.
He tweeted about the hacking on Thursday, writing:
“Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
According to Binance, the tokens worth $100 million remain “unrecovered”.
The hacker also removed the tokens from the chain.
At the moment, the remaining assets of the BNB chain are frozen for now.
The hack
The significant robbery was carried out when hackers targeted a cross-chain bridge.
Cross-chain bridges are a common feature in cryptocurrency platforms today.
Bridges are the infrastructure that allows users to exchange crypto assets across different blockchains.
Their services usually have large reserves filled with several currencies.
This puts coin reserves at the center of the hackers’ radar.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said coin reserves have made blockchain bridges prime targets for theft.
And lately, bridges have become the main targets for most hackers.
Theft
Elliptic reports that approximately $1.83 billion was stolen from bridges in August.
Most of the hacking happened this year, with $1.21 billion stolen.
Binance wasn’t alone, as others witnessed major thefts in 2022.
Losses include $190 million, which was stolen by cryptocurrency bridge provider Nomad in August.
In June, California-based Harmony announced a $100 million loss in late June.
Earlier this year, Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge lost $625 million in March.
Effects of the Binance hack
The latest hack caused the BNB blockchain to go offline for about nine hours.
BNB published a corporate post stating that the channel’s ecosystem had reached out to the channel’s validators to prevent the theft from spreading further.
Chain validators are responsible for verifying that transactions on the blockchain are legitimate.
According to a tweet from Binance, the channel came back online at around 2:30 p.m. ET.
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