Binance Hack Hits Markets as Bitcoin Falls to $77,000 and BNB Drops 8%

Crypto prices fell early Friday after Binance confirmed a major security incident. Bitcoin dropped 4.7% to about $77,130, Ether lost 5.8% to around $2199, and BNB declined 8.2% to roughly $693.

How Big Is the Binance Hack?

Binance puts the estimated impact at $6.3 billion, which would make it the largest crypto theft on record, while Chainalysis estimated about $5.9 billion was taken. The exchange paused all deposits and withdrawals and said verified frozen assets now total around $3 billion, up from $2.54 billion. Most of the early freezes came from stablecoin issuers, with Circle freezing more than $800 million in USDC and Tether freezing around $1 billion or more in USDT. Binance Alpha trading was also suspended.

Binance Promises to Cover All Losses

The exchange pledged to cover every loss using its SAFU emergency fund and company money, and said user funds are safe. Early findings point to a compromised engineer’s laptop that may have allowed unauthorized withdrawals, though Binance says it found no evidence that wallet private keys leaked. Founder Changpeng Zhao said it looks like a hack and that he expects users to be fully covered. Binance says withdrawals will return once its security scan finishes and promises a full post mortem.