Could Binance’s $6.3B hack trigger a wider crypto sell-off?

Binance said on October 30 that it was investigating a security breach estimated to have caused $6.3 billion in losses after a DevOps engineer’s laptop was compromised, possibly enabling unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange froze about $3 billion in assets, halted deposits and withdrawals, said it found no evidence wallet private keys were exposed, contacted police and blockchain investigators, and pledged to cover losses with its SAFU reserves and company funds. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, said more than 1.567 billion USDT had been frozen, and Jeremy Allaire of Circle confirmed a freeze exceeding 800 million USDC; freezing prevents further transfers but does not return assets. Bitcoin fell to a six-week low of $77,646.