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BREAKING: Binance loses over $6 billion in 'biggest crypto hack in history'

Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, lost about $6.3 billion to hackers on Thursday, the largest crypto theft on record.

The money left its hot wallets (the online wallets an exchange uses to pay out withdrawals) on Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron, and Chainalysis puts it at four times what Bybit lost in 2025.

Bitcoin dropped about 5% to under $77,000 as the news spread, and BNB, Binance's own token, lost 8%.

Withdrawals are still switched off while Binance rebuilds its withdrawal system (deposits are back on), and co-CEO Yi He says the exchange will cover all the losses.

Last month Bitget made the same promise after a $352 million hack, with a protection fund of more than $464 million to pay for it.

Binance's emergency fund for customers, SAFU, holds about $1 billion in Bitcoin, roughly a sixth of this loss, so most of the promise rests on Binance's own balance sheet.

Overnight it said it had set aside more than $6.34 billion of company money for the losses, about $5 billion of it held in the same coins the hackers took.

The drained wallets were also listed in its latest monthly proof of reserves (the wallet list it publishes to show customers' coins are fully backed), CoinDesk found.

On October 1 it held exactly enough Ether to cover what customers had there, so with about 204,500 ETH gone, that backing is near 94% until the coins are replaced.

To be fair, Binance held about $144 billion in assets before the hack, so the theft comes to around 4% of it.

About $3 billion of the haul is already frozen, mostly by Tether and Circle, which can lock their stablecoins at any address they choose.

Evgeny Gaevoy, who runs market maker Wintermute, reckons Binance could take three to four times this hit and still be largely intact.

Binance takes its next reserve snapshot on Sunday.

It'll show whether the missing Ether has been put back. 🚀

Wall Street is preparing for what could become one of the biggest AI IPOs in history. But ordinary investors may have to wait until shares begin publicly trading to participate directly.

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A new, free briefing reveals all three tickers, potential entry prices, and a bonus fourth company holding thousands of patents tied to the AI race.

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Lyn Alden thinks the question everyone's asking the Fed has a flaw baked into it.

She's the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy and one of the most respected macro analysts working today.

At Wednesday's press conference, a reporter put it to Fed Chair Kevin Warsh plainly: there's been almost no progress toward the 2% inflation target, so why not raise rates today?

Here's what she posted in reply:

Rate hikes work on demand, because higher borrowing costs mean people and companies spend less, and prices cool as that spending drops off.

They do far less when the pressure comes from supply, and this week has an obvious example (ours, not one from her post)…

US crude is still around $102 a barrel after reports the US could restart strikes on Iran once next week's midterms are done, and a hike can't add a single barrel to the market.

Even so, traders priced an 86% chance of a December hike after Wednesday's decision, by CME FedWatch's count, and two officials wanted one right away.

That matters for Bitcoin, which has traded on the rate path all autumn.

If the Fed keeps hiking and oil keeps prices up anyway, inflation stays sticky and the pressure to hold rates high doesn't let up.

The Fed can keep hiking, but the oil part of this inflation is out of its reach. 🧰

Today we'll be taking a look at the amount of wallets that hold at least some Bitcoin. (anything greater than 0)

This metric offers a bird's-eye view of user activity and adoption across the Bitcoin network.

But there's a slight catch…

One wallet does not equal one user. A user can have many wallets.

What matters here is the trend of the chart.

59,719,026 wallets now hold Bitcoin. That's 36,240 more than two weeks ago (59,682,786).

The gain is under a quarter of the 164,414 added the fortnight before.

Over the past month the count is up 200,654, from 59,518,372.

It's still 575,974 short of the 60,295,000 it reached six weeks ago.

At this fortnight's pace, closing that gap would take about 16 more fortnights.

The count rose for a second fortnight in a row, at a slower clip than the first. 📈

NYSE owner takes steps to bring Hyperliquid perpetual futures to U.S.. ICE is investing in Trade[XYZ], whose Hyperliquid markets have topped $650 billion in volume, to build a US venue pending CFTC approval.

Coinbase Swings to $719 Million Q3 Profit on Crypto Gains. About $715 million of the profit came from gains on crypto it holds, while revenue was flat at $1.22 billion.

Utah files criminal charges against Kalshi, executives over alleged illegal gambling. The charges name CEO Tarek Mansour and COO Luana Lopes Lara and came a day after the CFTC sued Utah over its gambling laws.

Bitcoin ETFs add $137M, pushing October back into the green. Wednesday's inflow made three straight days and about $424 million, lifting October's net total to $111 million, by SoSoValue's count.

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Because what would the crypto world be without its share of memes?

Trivia Answer: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System 🥳

Satoshi posted the nine-page paper to a cryptography mailing list on October 31, 2008, pitching online cash sent straight between people with no bank in the middle. The “digital gold” framing came years later.

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