The cryptocurrency exchange Binance could have lost $6.3 bln following a "security incident," the management of the platform announced on its X social media page.

Key facts known at the moment...

'Security incident'

Former CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao believes the platform could have been hacked.

The current management of the cryptocurrency exchange has said that its "teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating."

It was noted that no impact on user funds had been detected.

The management of the platform later reported on X that the cryptocurrency exchange Binance had suspended all deposit and withdrawal operations following a suspected hacker attack.

The team was conducting security checks, freezing funds, and working with law enforcement agencies, the report said.

The platform’s management said in a statement later that the "security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop."

This allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions, according to the statement.

Binance said it had found no evidence that wallet private keys were compromised.

The platform’s management later said that the incident was caused by several factors.

The crypto exchange’s security team is tracing the full path of the attack through a compromised computer, which may have served as the entry point for the incident.

A detailed report identifying the root cause will be published later, Binance added.

Loss

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance could have lost $6.3 bln following the "security incident," the management of the platform later announced on its X page.

The company also noted that a portion of the affected assets had been frozen in collaboration with partners in the blockchain industry, adding that around $3 bln had been blocked directly on the blockchain.

Binance will cover all losses, the management of the platform said.

It was noted that user funds were safe.

Resumption prospects

Binance expects withdrawals to resume within 48 hours, the trading platform stated on X.

Deposits remain unaffected and are operating normally, according to the statement.

Cryptocurrencies situation

The value of the top two cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), has fallen sharply, according to Binance data.

As of 8:42 p.m. GMT on October 29, the price of Bitcoin was down by 2.15% at $79,370.

The price of Ethereum was down by 3.71% at $2,265.

By 8:47 p.m. GMT the Bitcoin price had widened its losses to 3.32%, reaching $78,341.

The price of Ethereum was down by 5.01% at $2,233.

According to Coinmarketcap data as of October 29, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market amounted to $2.67 trillion.

Bitcoin accounted for $1.6 trillion (60.2%), while Ethereum accounted for $276.6 bln (10.5%).

According to Coinglass data, global crypto exchanges liquidated over 158,000 traders' positions worth $923.54 mln in 24 hours.

Most of the liquidations involved Bitcoin.

Around $785.21 mln in liquidations were for long positions, and $146.7 mln were for short positions.

The largest liquidation order of the past 24 hours, valued at $11.09 mln, was submitted on the Binance exchange for the BTC/USDT pair.

Later Bitcoin and Ethereum recovered some of their losses.

They reduced their declines following a sharp drop of more than 5%, according to Binance data.

Specifically, the price of Bitcoin was down by 5.49% at $76,760, according to Binance data as of 3:29 a.m. Moscow time (00:29 a.m. GMT).

The price of Ethereum was down by 6.46% at $2,205.

By 3:23 a.m. GMT the Bitcoin price had narrowed its losses to 3%, reaching $77,477.

The Ethereum price was down by 3.9% at $2,216.

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