Bitcoin Hits $78,297 as Binance Probes Suspected Security Breach

Bitcoin fell to an intraday low of $78,297 on Binance spot on Oct. 29 and was near $79,126 at press time as large transfers left Binance-labeled wallets. Binance said it was investigating reports of a potential security issue, while former CEO Changpeng Zhao said the activity looked like a hack. Tether said it froze about $1.57B related to the suspected incident, and Circle froze about $823M.

Why it matters

The transfers drew attention because assets moved from Binance-labeled wallets to a new address, and an analyst said the contract call was funded by an address linked to Tornado Cash. Whale Alert recorded 28,005 ETH, worth about $64.9M, leaving one Binance-labeled wallet, followed by 780M USDC leaving another. Both transfers went to the same new address. That address later forwarded 195,460 ETH, about $449M, to a second address.

On-chain watchers circulated a figure close to $2.8B across five chains, but that total remained unreconciled. DefiLlama co-founder 0xngmi said Binance held $144B in assets under custody and argued that any amount effectively stolen would be less than 1% of that value and could be covered from its balance sheet. Binance said its security teams were reviewing the information and would share updates through official channels once verified.

Market impact

Bitcoin's weakness began before the highlighted transfers. It had traded below $80,000 earlier on Oct. 29 amid a technology-stock selloff and a hawkish reading of the Federal Reserve's Oct. 28 hold. Binance spot data showed BTC falling from about $80,849 to $80,438 between 20:00 and 20:15 UTC. The 20:30 to 20:45 candle closed at $78,884.52, down about 1.9%, before the intraday low arrived in the next quarter hour.

CoinGlass reported nearly $1B in crypto liquidations over 24 hours, including about $532M in the preceding hour. Bitcoin liquidations totaled $289M and Ethereum's totaled $236M. The exchange investigation and verification of the circulating transfer estimates remain key developments to watch.