Binance was hacked on May 8 when a “security breach,” resulted in 7,000 BTC being taken out of the exchange. Given the prevailing BTC price, the hack resulted in a loss of $40 million. Proceedings from the hacking incident of cryptocurrency exchange; Binance, have been moved to seven addresses as a consequence of the stated security breach.
The breach resulted in about 7,074 bitcoins (BTC) — worth nearly $42.8 million at that time, being stolen from the exchange’s wallet. The transaction had 44 outputs, 21 of which were native Segregated Witness addresses, and those addresses received 99.97% of the funds.
According to The Block, the funds from those 44 addresses have been reportedly since moved to seven addresses, six of which hold 1,060.6 BTC, while one holds 707.1 BTC.
Previously, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing firm confirm had reported that its analysis showed how 1,227 BTC were moved to two new addresses, one holding 707 coins, while the other one 520 coins.
Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, shared his live AMA on Twitter to address community concerns after the shocking incident of the hack, also discussing the idea of a Bitcoin chain reorganization, however after community backlash, the idea was dropped.
As reported, eight people have been arrested in Spain for allegedly operating a money laundering scheme involving cryptocurrencies on a whole. Following the hack, Binance announced that withdrawals and deposits would be halted till May 14. Although, based on a subsequent announcement by the exchange, a scheduled upgrade will be performed at 0300 UTC on May 15, which would last for a period of 6-8 hours. During this period, the exchange would move to once again suspend deposits, withdrawals, and trading.
Furthermore, the large virtual currency transaction aggregator, Whale Alert, has pledged its support to Binance, following the latter’s hack to the tune of $40 million last week. The twitter handle for the aggregator stated that a special protocol has been put in place that will notify the hacked exchange if any large-scale transaction involving the stolen Bitcoin is administered.
Sadly, in the past week with Bitcoin surging over $8,000, days after it breached $6,000, the Whale Alert notifications have been going totally off the chart as on May 14, 2019, the transaction aggregator stated that over $21 million in Bitcoins were traded from two unknown locations.
