Cryptocurrency exchange scrambles to freeze affected assets, with about $3bn located so far, and says it will cover losses

Binance exchange says it will cover customer losses as it scrambles to freeze affected assets, with about $3bn located so far

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been hit by a record $6.3bn (£4.7bn) hack described as the biggest heist in history, with experts identifying North Korea as the likely culprit.

Binance said it would cover all customer losses as it froze $3bn of the affected assets.

Analysts said the exchange had been subjected to an unprecedented attack with “never-seen-before” laundering patterns as the hackers made off with assets worth billions of dollars.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    36·
    2 days ago

    “This is almost certainly the largest theft of any kind in history,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist at crypto consultancy Elliptic.

    If it’s North Korea, and if they get to make use of it, it’d be over 1/6th of their GDP, which is pretty bonkers.

    There was that massive bank fraud case in Moldova a few years back.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Moldovan_bank_fraud_scandal

    In 2014, $1 billion disappeared from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială.[3] This bank fraud was a coordinated effort involving all three banks working together to extract as much loan finance as possible from the banks without any obvious business rationale. Ilan Șor, a Moldovan businessman, together with Vladimir Plahotniuc and Serghei Iaralov “masterminded” the scam. Șor was chairman of the board at Banca de Economii (Savings Bank, BEM) up to 28 November 2014.[4]

    Funds worth $1 billion were transferred to the United Kingdom and Hong Kong shell companies used to conceal the real owners of assets,[3][5] then deposited into Latvian bank accounts under the names of various foreigners.

    The total loss from the scheme was equivalent to 12% of Moldova’s GDP.[6]

    A carousel borrowing scheme was applied, loans at one bank were paid off with loans from another. The massive expansion of bank lending was funded with heavy borrowing from Russian companies.

    That’d be a larger relative impact than the bank fraud was on Moldova (albeit on the receiving side, not the stolen-from side).

    • northendtrooper@lemmy.caEnglish
      81·
      2 days ago

      If it’s North Korea, and if they get to make use of it, it’d be over 1/6th of their GDP, which is pretty bonkers.

      Kind of amazing when you put it into prospective. What is scarier is that much suddenly cash flow can help them purchase ‘stuff’ for ‘defense’

    • von@infosec.pubEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      18.5% vs 12% of GDP, to make the comparison directly. 50% larger relatively, and in the opposite direction as you pointed out.