Binance hacked for an estimated $2.53 billion as markets drop and crypto theft records are broken
Rob from Digital Asset News covers the Binance hack, market reaction, and broader context around crypto security and price cycles.
Summary
A massive hack of Binance's hot wallet has drained approximately $2.53 billion across 60-plus tokens on Ethereum, with onchain data tracing the outflow to a Tornado Cash-funded address. CZ, the former CEO of Binance, referenced the hack and noted that Tether and Circle moved quickly to freeze a significant portion of the stolen funds — approximately $1.8 billion. The broader context of rising crypto theft is addressed, noting that 2026 year-to-date theft totals of $2.5–2.8 billion are approaching but have not yet surpassed the full-year 2025 total of $3.4 billion. The broader market reaction is also covered, including a sharp drop in Alphabet/Google stock following earnings, and discusses Bitcoin's historical behavior around midterm elections, suggesting a bottom may be near but not necessarily immediate.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Binance Hacked for $2.53 Billion
Rob: Q4 is upon us as we go into the midterm elections, which are next week. As we've talked about on this channel, there may be some catalysts to hit some bottoms, and I think we may have hit one of those.
This is coming from CZ — the former CEO of Binance, who has stepped down, and who I think has some insider information about what's going on. He has just told us that, yeah, it looks like Binance got hacked today and they lost roughly $2.53 billion so far. These are hot wallets. It's not the entire exchange itself, but it looks like they've lost a substantial amount of user funds, and who knows how much they're going to get back.
I also found this quite interesting — what CZ says here. It does look like a hack on Binance. So anybody coming here to say, "Rob, that's not a hack" — it's a hack. He also appreciated the quick freeze from Tether and Circle. See, this is the great thing about having a lot of money, power, and influence. They can just reach out to Tether, Arino, and Circle and say, "Hey, could you guys freeze this?" Absolutely. Now, for the rest of us — when we get hacked, nothing happens. They pretty much ignore you and tell the hackers to move all the funds around. It's like, "Whoops, cost of doing business." But good for these guys, because that is a hefty amount of funds that were saved from these hackers.
So what is going on here? It looks like they had a hack attempt by the Lazarus Group from North Korea last week, and they were fighting with them for five to seven days. Now it looks like somehow, someway, the hot wallet has been exploited. Onchain data shows a large outflow from Binance's hot wallet — $2.53 billion across 60-plus tokens on Ethereum, including a major ETH transfer. The transaction that moved the funds was initiated by an address funded via Tornado Cash, with the assets sent to a fresh EOA. That's reported as unconfirmed — well, I'll call it confirmed right now.
AI-Enabled Hacking and the Growing Threat
As we've talked about on this channel, it's only going to get worse, especially with hacks. The thing with hacks is that there are only so many hackers to go around. They try something, they have to use a lot of time and energy. But now with AI, they can just spin up a bunch of agents and go hack everything — do as much as they want and keep pressing until they get $10 billion, then report it back to the group, put it through a mixer wallet, and that's that.
The great thing about being a hacker — and I hate to say this — is that there's essentially no risk. How many hackers do you know that have been arrested? Very few. All you've got to do is get away with it. It only takes time, a little bit of effort, and a little bit of know-how, especially with AI. So be careful out there, everybody.
Bitcoin's Four-Year Cycle and Current Market Position
As we've talked about on this channel, anything can happen in Q4, and this is usually when we see a bottom. With the midterms coming in, we thought that was the issue. Now it could be hacks. Let's take a look at what's going on globally, which I think is a bigger issue.
This is the four-year cycle laid out every four years as it compares. You can find this on Dan Teaches Crypto — just click on tools and take a look at the four-year cycle. We've also got ETF flows, price profits, price models, recession watch, and of course a little bit of charity action for those who want to give back.
As of today, we're down to 79 — we're going to 78K. We're down 36% from the all-time high. At this same point four years ago, on October 29th, 2022, we were already down almost 70% from the all-time high, sitting at $20,988. So if this is your first bear market, congratulations — you've gotten off light, because it was a lot more interesting back in 2022. I personally think this is kind of a boring market, but I am considered a little bit nutty. Let me know what you think about that in the Q&A — whether this feels super exhausting or like no big deal.
As we can see here, if everything had lined up, we should be down to around $39,000 for Bitcoin roughly.
Traditional Markets: Google Earnings Miss
How does that compare to the traditional markets? Today we had quite a bit of a tumble. The S&P 500 is down just a little bit, but that's not the big story. The big story is missing earnings by a mile. Amazon earnings came out and it wasn't what was expected — they're down 4%. The big loser today, and this is a massive move in traditional markets, is down almost 13% — 12.29% to be exact. That's Google, Alphabet Class C, which I personally own some of. Thankfully, shout out to Ivan on Tech and Wes from Smart Money Tracking — both of their indicators were flashing sell, so I sold some a couple of days ago. That worked out great.
Today, Google is down massively because of their capex. They're putting a lot of money into the development of infrastructure for AI, and I think it's a smart play. If you think AI is going to do something good — not investment advice — Google already has the infrastructure, the data centers, the chips, the neoclouds, and they're putting even more money into it. That might be something to look at.
Also, Nvidia — not too bad, down about 0.8%. Microsoft, which was the darling 48 hours ago when their earnings report came in a little above expectations and people were buying up their AI co-pilot — it was up massively, I want to say six or 8% after hours — and even they can't escape what's going on in the AI sector.
Crypto Market Reaction
Where are we in crypto? We're probably at 78K, but right now we're at $79,400. Not too bad, honestly, for a couple-billion-dollar hack on one of the biggest exchanges in the world, with a $2.8 trillion market cap. It's kind of resilient. Bitcoin is down 3.3%. Ethereum down. BNB — wow, look at that. But across the board, not looking too good. Expect more of a drop as this plays out.
Diversify Your Storage — A Reminder
As a quick reminder — you know what I'm going to say. Don't be the person who's like, "I lost everything because I put it all in one place. I put it all on Binance." Or, "I put it on a hardware wallet, but I bought it from a third-party reseller which was listed as an authorized reseller on the Ledger website." You know where I'm going with this.
So do this — I'm begging you. Diversify your portfolio with whatever you think is going to work out, and diversify your storage. You can do an ETF. I use iTrust. I still use Ledger. I use the ETF. I buy through Kraken, my favorite exchange, because the fees are reasonable and I can do a lot of things there. And then with iTrust Capital, they have their own institutional custody and I get to piggyback off that.
As a reminder on theft: in 2025 the total stolen was $3.4 billion. In 2026, we just doubled it today — because the total stolen on Binance was roughly $2.53 billion. So the 2026 year-to-date total is now $2.5 to $2.8 billion, and we get to keep adding to that.
It's not about what's happened — it's what can you do? You have a sphere of control. You can only deal with the things you can actually move and change. The thing you can change is how you react to this. Stress usually isn't about the circumstance — it's about how you respond to it. With iTrust, they use Coinbase Prime, Fidelity, and Fireblocks. You get institutional custody. You can do in-kind transfers — send your Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, or whatever else you've got. Just don't put everything in one place. That's all I'm asking.
Global Preparedness Warnings
This is from the Friends of the Show, Coin Bureau. A bunch of different countries have said, "Hey, you need to have enough food and water and cash on hand for up to 72 hours." It's going between three days to seven days depending on the country. The Department of Defense — Pete Hegseth — came out and said all US bases have to be self-sustaining for 90 days. There was also a story that broke about Fort Huachuca in Arizona, which I had a brief stint at — they are investigating a hack onto their base because a bunch of their freezers suddenly increased in temperature and broke down. They're looking at whether that was a cyberattack.
You can see right here — UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland — all the governments at the same time are saying you better be prepared for whatever is coming. It's amazing how they all moved together. Maybe there are more strikes coming, maybe more AI hacks, maybe something else entirely. But it would behoove you to make sure you have enough resources for at least seven to fourteen days in your home. If you've got to use cash, use cash. Protect your family, protect yourself.
Bullish News: Franklin Templeton and Google MPC
The good news — because I will not just give you nothing but bad news. Does anybody remember Y2K? If you're old, you know what I'm talking about. Y2K was a big issue back in 1999 when we were going to roll over to 2000. It was all a bunch of developers saying, "Because we only used the last two digits for years, it's going to screw up the whole computing system — 97, 98, 99, then double zeros, it's going to break everything down." I remember I was working in oncology on the floor that night. We hit midnight and we all looked around — are we still here? Nothing collapsed. Monitors still on. No big deal. Maybe some of this is no big deal too. Let's focus on things we can actually control.
Franklin Templeton — $1.8 trillion in assets under management — just launched a 95% US stocks and 5% Bitcoin ETF. Dividends are automatically reinvested into Bitcoin. That's a $1.8 trillion conglomerate accepting that. Pretty cool.
Also, my favorite part of the show — worthless price predictions. Bitwise, which I do like, gave an updated Bitcoin forecast for 2036. The bare case is $130,000. The base case is $1.59 million. The bull case is $3.6 million. Let's just say we get the bare case. I want you to really think about that and what you're investing in, because that's not even a 2x from here. Is it possible? In the next cycle I thought we could go between $150,000 and $170,000, but that's looking into 2029. 2036 — you never know.
For altcoins, it feels like Wall Street is picking the winners, and it's pretty much Solana and Ethereum and some others — Canton, Hyperliquid, which Stanley Druckenmiller apparently endorsed today if that was his X account. It's not verified, but very interesting — that's why Hyperliquid was up. And you've got others like Tao and some AI-focused projects.
This one's good: Alphabet — the one that just lost 12% today — is securing its own digital assets on Solana. Google unveiled Google MPC today, or multi-party compute, an institutional custody system now in private preview with major institutions. Google is using it to secure its own digital assets on ETH and Solana. Google plans to make the multi-party compute system commercially available in early 2027. The idea is to split a private key into individual fragments and distribute them across multiple separate systems so there is no single point of failure. Is it "your keys"? Not in the traditional sense — but I'd rather have that than lose everything. It's interesting that they chose Solana and Ethereum for this.
And what did Solana's price do today? Down about 5%. Not too bad, quite honestly. We broke $100 for Solana. On June it was $63. Might be something to look at.
Recap
So that's what we have for today. To give you a recap — this is all you need to know. CZ said Binance was hacked. Roughly $2.53 billion, that we know of so far. Tether froze approximately $1.8 billion of that. We'll see how much more gets taken and go from there.
Q&A
Rob: If you want a good idea of what's coming, go look up Simon Dixon. I know Simon's always making the rounds, making the case for a very difficult short-term outlook. I've had him on the show a couple of times. Interesting guy. Met him in person at a Coin Bureau event. Had a couple of beers with him — reasonable guy, but not very optimistic in the short term.
Someone in the chat asks about a bounce after the midterms. Yes, we've talked about this on the show. But you have to remember — after midterms, it doesn't just start going up. Actually, after midterms, it still goes down more. We talked about this a few days ago. Take a look at this data. Bitcoin price around midterm election years, going from 2010 to the present.
In 2014, Bitcoin bottomed 71 days after the election. In 2018, Bitcoin bottomed 39 days after the election. In 2022, Bitcoin bottomed 13 days after the election. What do you notice? The time is getting shorter — 71 days, 39 days, 13 days. If we follow that pattern, maybe a week or so after the midterms we get a bottom.
Going backwards, six months after the midterms in 2014, you're actually still down 28%. In 2018, six months after, you're still down 11%. In 2022, you're up almost 50%. One year after the midterm, historically speaking, you're up 25%, 45%, and you've almost doubled your bags in 2022. That sounds not too bad.
Someone asks about XRP mooning. I sure hope so. I looked at iTrust's AI tool called Q, which did a four-year retroactive analysis and looked at different strategies. I picked one that's a little risky — a 1,471% return. I didn't put everything into it. But I did put into the XRP strategy at 681% and the Solana strategy at 601%. The Bitcoin strategy I passed on — I'd rather just buy and hold. But these two I'm going to see how they do.
Kelby asks: "Rob, do you think we'll ever see euphoria like in 2021?" Man, I sure hope so. I was just talking to the founder of Bluewell, Han, and I was saying, "I'm so sick of talking about earnings reports and the Fed and what was said in the meeting and inflation rates and the macro." Let me know in the comments — did you like it better in 2021 when everything was just optimistic and hopeful? Do you remember Bit Boy? Oh man, that was great. It was crazy, but damn, it was fun. It was a lot more fun than this. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is more fun, crawling over everything that Mike Wuerz says from the Federal Reserve. Let me know in the comments.
Honey asks: "Rob, is crypto even worth it anymore? Since 2017, Bitcoin has barely outperformed NASDAQ and alts have underperformed." Honey is not wrong. This is why I talk about diversity on this channel. I've used Bitcoin for what it was originally intended for — by the way, the white paper from Satoshi says nothing about a store of value or a hedge against inflation. It's not even in there. It's peer-to-peer transactions. So I used it to buy some properties. We have multiple properties — short-term, medium-term, and long-term. It worked out for me. I've always done real estate. My wife's way better at it though. Then we put money into loans, and then some equities.
Is crypto even worth it? It doesn't seem like it right now, because of how many hacks there are and how tiring it is. But I guarantee you when the bull run comes — and I don't think we're going to see altcoins like 2021, where you could close your eyes and throw a dart and be a millionaire — I think there are going to be some winners chosen. And I think those winners are going to hoover up all the market cap. They're going to suck up all the developers and all the communities around them, just like what Amazon and Facebook did in the past. I just have to find those winners. I tend to think we're going in a certain direction. If you watch the show, you know which ones those are.
Will it be euphoria like 2021? That was a magical time. I lean toward no, I don't think we'll hit that again.
Someone mentions Near and AI. Near is at $6 billion. Ethereum is at $230–240 billion. I look at Near and what it's doing with AI agents moving forward, and I can see it. I look at Solana and what they're doing with tokenization of real-world assets and AI agents. I look at Tron — I know people outside America use it constantly. I didn't realize that until I was doing transactions in parts of Asia. Does everybody use Tron for Tether? Yeah. So I think they can do great. It's just finding the right ones — and it could be XRP, it could be Canton, it could be Hyperliquid, it could be a lot of different ones.
Someone asks about ADA and Midnight. I'll defer to my friend Big Payton, who was on the show about a month ago. He's a big Cardano believer and he just said they blew it. Even Charles has alluded to this on his live streams. They really could have done something as far as adoption. It's a good project and I love how they launched it — they didn't dump it into VC hands — but they missed a lot of opportunities in adoption and real-world use cases. With Midnight, I think it's a great thing. If you can use it on multiple chains — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, wherever it is — to add privacy to those transactions, that's great. That's what a lot of people are asking for.
On the Binance hack — I did reread what CZ said. We got hacked, but they saved roughly $1.8 billion of the $2.5 billion because their contacts at Tether were like, "Yeah, we'll freeze it." Not too bad. And then Binance can just roll back the chain. Everybody loves decentralization and shouts it from the rooftops until it's their money — and then they're like, "You know what, maybe we should roll that chain back."
On the question of whether blockchain can be hacked — the ex-deputy director of the CIA has talked about how blockchain is actually used right now to track illicit activity, to uncover terrorists and cartels. And it's true. I see Bitcoin as a great store of value and a tool for peer-to-peer transactions if people would just use it that way.
On money laundering — if you really want to do that, you know what the best place is? Art galleries. How much is that painting? $200 million. Here's $200 million. Boy, we had some losses this year — $199.9 million. Got to write that off. Who made that painting? My kid. It was a finger painting.
Someone asks about the renters. Yeah — we're doing NFA Live and I see some guests checking in. I make it so easy to check into all my properties. I've done videos of it: this is how you go through the gate, this is how you turn the key, this is how you drink water. Everything you want to know, I put in a video and in emails and in text messages. And they're still like, "I don't know where the key is." But hey, at least you know I'm not lying when I talk about owning properties and doing short-term rentals.
Has anybody been retired? I've been retired for about ten years. It's boring unless you actually do something. I can't just sit around. People are tired from travel — finding the gate, finding the right drop-off, finding the driver, giving directions. That's just how it is.
Closing Thoughts
All right, everybody. That's it for tonight. I know it was a bummer of news, but it wasn't that bad, quite honestly. I think we're in the right place at the right time. AI cuts both ways — you can have a tool and use it for good or for harm. Even though there are a bunch of hacks out there, if it's a problem that was started by man, it can be solved by man.