Hackers stolen 100M BNB coin from Binance, world largest crypto exchange

On Thursday, a hacker stole nearly $600 million worth of cryptocurrency BNB from popular crypto exchange Binance. The hack was investigated and reported on by security experts @samczsun and Igor Igamberdiev, among others.

According to samczsun, the hacker tricked BSC Token Hub, a cryptocurrency bridge, into sending them a little over 2 million BNB, worth roughly $586 million at the time.

BSC, or Binance Smart Chain, is a cryptocurrency platform for running decentralized apps, similar to Ethereum. BNB, or Binance Coin, is the cryptocurrency issued by Binance; think of it as Ethereum’s ether. A bridge is a project that lets you move funds from one crypto platform (chain) to another.

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao confirmed the hack shortly thereafter. In a tweet, he said: “An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.”

According to samcszun, the stolen amount is actually much larger than what CZ has claimed. This is supported by actual transactions on the blockchain. However, CZ claims that the current estimate for the impact of this hack is around $100 million. In an official post on Reddit, Binance said that the initial estimate for funds taken off BSC is between $100 – $110 million. Additionally, they estimate that around $7 million has already been frozen by them (meaning the hacker cannot move the coins). The discrepancy in numbers is likely due to Binance referring to the funds the hacker managed to move to other chains or make inaccessible in other ways.