$6.3 billion in crypto stolen by hackers

[dishstaller]

This should hit a lot of folks with a dose of reality. I can only imagine how much more common this will get as AI progresses.

I read several stories on this and most are clear as mud. They say a lot of the stolen bitcoin has been "locked out" and that everyone will be made financially whole. I guess time will tell if either of these statements are actually true.

Hackers steal $6.3 billion from Binance in biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft

The company later added it began recovering assets impacted by the breach after pledging to cover losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users.

www.cnbc.com

 

[harshness]

They say a lot of the stolen bitcoin has been "locked out" and that everyone will be made financially whole.

The "Secure Asset Fund" had about $1 billion in reserves... in Bitcoin.

The fund started in 2018, so it may take a while to make investors whole, much less replenish the fund.

 

[dishstaller]

The "Secure Asset Fund" had about $1 billion in reserves... in Bitcoin.

The fund started in 2018, so it may take a while to make investors whole, much less replenish the fund.

That's kinda what I was seeing but all the news reports are suggesting that all investors will be made whole immediately.
The other thing they weren't clear about was the BTC that was "locked out" of the system. I guess that means that the stolen BTC is basically worthless now because I don't see how it could be replaced....but there is a LOT about the crypto world that leaves me scratching my head.

 

[harshness]

This is what scares me about cryptocurrency: there doesn't seem to be any oversight.

It seems more like politics than investing.

 

[meStevo]

A few clarifications... the ~$3B "locked" was mostly stablecoins (USDT/USDC). Tether and Circle can blacklist their own tokens, which makes those worthless to the thief. Bitcoin and ETH have no issuer, so they can't be frozen. That's the ~$2.4–3.3B the hackers still have, so the stolen BTC is very much not worthless to them. It was also spread across 10 blockchains, not just bitcoin. On getting made whole: SAFU is ~15,000 BTC (~$1.2B), and Binance says it'll cover the rest from company funds. Analysts don't see it as a solvency problem, and withdrawals are expected back within days.

The attack was pinned on North Korea's TraderTraitor group via a compromised engineer laptop. Like many hacks and compromises, that's old-school social engineering, not AI.

This is what scares me about cryptocurrency: there doesn't seem to be any oversight.

It seems more like politics than investing.

That's the tradeoff stablecoins make - a central issuer that can freeze funds, which is why half the loot got stopped. Bitcoin and ETH have no one in charge, so nobody can reverse a theft, but nobody can freeze your coins either. Stablecoins trade price volatility for trusting a central issuer.