Image source: Money Control
In the crypto and NFT space, theft has become a recurring problem, and Binance has become the latest victim of such a nuisance.
The report
On Friday, a Binance spokesperson revealed that a Binance-linked blockchain was involved in a $570 million hack on Thursday.
On Thursday, the cryptocurrency exchange platform tweeted that Binance had temporarily suspended BNB Smart Chain, its blockchain network.
The company claimed that the action was the result of irregular activity.
On Friday, Binance released a statement claiming that hackers stole two million BNB cryptocurrency tokens, which were worth $ 570 million at the time.
Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, initially tweeted that about $ 100 million worth of cryptocurrencies had been stolen.
On Thursday, he tweeted:
“Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
According to Binance, tokens worth $100 million remain “unrecovered” and were taken from the chain by the hacker.
Meanwhile, the remaining funds in the BNB chain have been frozen.
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The hack
The major heist was carried out with the hackers targeting what’s known in the space as a cross-chain bridge.
Recently, bridges have become the target of most hackers.
Bridges are the infrastructure that allows users to exchange crypto assets on different blockchains.
Their services usually hold large reserves of various coins.
This puts coin reserves at the center of the pirates’ concerns.
According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, coin reserves have made blockchain bridges prime targets for robberies.
Theft
Elliptic reports that about $1.83 billion was stolen from bridges in August, with the majority ($1.21 billion) occurring this year.
Binance was not alone, as 2022 saw significant thefts.
Other losses include $190 million stolen from cryptocurrency bridge provider Nomad in August.
In June, California-based Harmony announced a loss of $100 million at the end of June.
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge lost $625 million in March.
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Effects of the Binance hack
The latest hack caused the BNB blockchain to go offline for about nine hours.
BNB wrote a corporate post stating that the chain’s ecosystem contacted the chain’s validators to prevent the incident from spreading further.
Chain validators are people who verify that transactions on the blockchain are legitimate.
The chain went back online around 2:30 a.m. ET, according to a tweet from the company.
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