Why Is BNB Price Falling? Binance Hack Triggers Sell-Off
The first signs of trouble appeared at around 20:05 UTC on Thursday, when billions of dollars began leaving Binance-linked wallets for freshly created addresses. Most of the funds moved within roughly 20 minutes. At 21:15 UTC, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) became the first high-profile figure to confirm what on-chain analysts suspected.Minutes later, Binance published its first official statement, saying its teams were investigating reports of a potential security issue.User funds are safe!
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 29, 2026
It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m).
I don't manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered. https://t.co/oufpyNChxI
The scale of the breach became clear within the hour. The Kobeissi Letter reported multibillion-dollar outflows across several networks, a post that Elon Musk later quote-shared with the comment “Everyday is Zeroday.”Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe.
— Binance (@binance) October 29, 2026
Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have… pic.twitter.com/ATR4YdzmHV
Dominick John, analyst at Zeus Research, summarized the market impact: “The Binance exploit has intensified market-wide selling, with BNB facing the greatest exposure. About $1.5 billion in 24-hour liquidations, predominantly long positions, has amplified pressure on BTC and ETH.” According to CoinGlass data cited by The Block, liquidations reached $1.55 billion, of which $1.34 billion came from long positions.BREAKING: Binance has been hacked with wallets across the Ethereum, Bitcoin, and TRON networks seeing outflows of -$5.7 billion.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 29, 2026
The hack includes $1.45 billion worth of Bitcoin and $875 million worth of ETH.
If confirmed, this would mark the biggest hack in crypto history.
We…
Binance Confirms $6.3 Billion Impact and Freezes $3 Billion
In an update early on Friday, Binance said its initial investigation pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which gave an attacker access to a service container used to submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.A later update said the investigation had “uncovered additional points of breach” and stressed that “no individual engineer’s permissions could have been used to move the funds in ‘one click.’ The theft involved a more complex, multi-step process.” Blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, the North Korean hacking unit behind the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025, which this incident now eclipses as the largest on record. Glassnode data showed $1.66 billion in USDT, $1.45 billion in Bitcoin and $767 million in USDC were drained. Tether froze more than 1.567 billion USDT and Circle more than 800 million USDC linked to the theft, helping Binance put the verified frozen total at around $3 billion. Co-CEO Richard Teng addressed users directly: “Bottom line – your money is safe, and we’re covering every loss.” Binance said all losses will be covered by its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company funds. Importantly for the BNB price prediction, the hack did not touch BNB Chain. BNB Chain confirmed that BNB Smart Chain, opBNB, BNB Greenfield and the BNB Chain Bridge were unaffected, and Glassnode said Binance’s BNB balance was “left untouched.” What traders are pricing is exchange risk, not stolen tokens.Binance's initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any wallet private… pic.twitter.com/5REncAI77y
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
