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Bitcoin circled $77,000 as crypto markets navigated US stock-market downside, while the gold price fell to its lowest in a year. Bitcoin (BTC) stayed under pressure below $80,000 at Friday’s Wall Street open as AI fears returned to intensify a broader risk-asset rout. Key points:
A US fusion startup says it has turned mercury into gold. Could a potential increase in the gold supply strengthen Bitcoin’s claim to be a better form of digital gold? They say all that glitters is not gold, and that took on a completely different meaning this month when a US fusion startup claimed it had produced gold from mercury. Rather than chemical trickery, Marathon Fusion’s process relies on nuclear transmutation. Its research paper describes how high-energy neutrons from a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction can irradiate mercury-198, producing a radioactive isotope that decays into stable gold-197. So, if gold has what some are calling an “infinite mint bug,” what will happen to the centuries-old metal so revered for its scarcity? And what, if anything, could that mean for Bitcoin a…
Binance is working with law enforcement to recover $3 billion that is frozen, after setting aside more than $6.3 billion from the company’s funds to cover the shortfall. Binance is working with the FBI to help recover some of the funds stolen in the record $6.3 billion exploit, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Cointelegraph contacted the FBI for more details about the collaboration but had not received a response by the time of publication. The cryptocurrency exchange revealed its cooperation with law enforcement in a Friday X post, without specifying the agencies involved.
The exchange said it set aside more than $6.34 billion to cover losses and would include the assets in its next proof-of-reserves report. Binance said Friday that it had set aside more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover losses from its hack, with $5 billion already in held in the same tokens stolen. “The $5 billion is held in the exact token assets that are required. These assets are in Binance custody,” a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph. Binance did not disclose when it acquired the assets.
Follow live updates as Binance says $6.3 billion in assets have been stolen in a major hack. Around $3 billion in stolen funds have been frozen. Oct. 30 at 11:07 am UTC Binance is buying altcoins in quantities matching those stolen in the hack as it prepares updated proof of reserves, co-CEO Yi He said. The purchases are being made through over-the-counter deals and on exchanges, she said.
Zcash Community Grants proposed redirecting about $124 million in existing and future funding toward mining rewards, but critics say the plan fails to address governance and accountability concerns. Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) has proposed redirecting about $46 million in Zcash tokens from its treasury to future block rewards, but industry figures criticized the move, demanding greater accountability for the fund. On Thursday, ZCG proposed transferring 36,200 ZEC from its roughly 91,500-ZEC treasury to the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), which reserves coins for future mining rewards. If approved, the committee would retain about 55,200 ZEC, worth about $70 million at the time of writing. The group also proposed forgoing about 62,000 ZEC ($78.5 million) in future allocations and…
Bitcoin held above $76,000 after a $6.3 billion Binance hack and a tech-stock sell-off, as momentum indicators pointed to a possible rebound. Bitcoin (BTC) traded above $77,000 on Friday as crypto market liquidations passed $1.5 billion over 24 hours. Key points:
Security experts say attackers could have drained Binance’s wallets without EIP-7702, but the Ethereum upgrade may have helped bypass withdrawal safeguards. Compromised signing systems likely enabled Binance’s $6.3 billion hack, while Ethereum’s EIP-7702 upgrade may have helped attackers bypass security checks, according to blockchain security firm Blockaid. Attackers could have stolen the funds without EIP-7702, Ido Ben-Natan, Blockaid’s co-founder and CEO, told Cointelegraph on Friday. “The 7702 upgrade is a way to do this in one sweep and maybe a way to bypass some sort of checks they may have,” Ben-Natan said, explaining that attackers otherwise would have needed multiple transactions.
The attackers held 18,270 BTC early Friday, topping Coinbase’s reported corporate holdings, and an Ether stash exceeding 500,000 ETH. The attackers behind the $6.3 billion Binance hack held more Bitcoin on Friday than crypto exchange Coinbase’s holding for investment and operation at the end of September. Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery traced 18,270 Bitcoin (BTC), worth roughly $1.4 billion, to 19 addresses linked to the attacker. Coinbase reported holding 17,954 BTC for investment and 117 BTC for operations as of Sept. 30, a combined 18,071 BTC. The Binance hacker’s haul exceeded that total by 199 BTC. Coinbase’s holdings does not include the BTC that the exchange holds for customers.
North Korean hackers previously used THORChain to move funds stolen from Bybit and Bitget, prompting calls for the protocol to intervene. THORChain’s RUNE token rose more than 13% on Friday after Binance confirmed a $6.3 billion hack. RUNE climbed to $0.67 at the time of writing from a local low of $0.59 at 12:20 a.m. UTC, according to TradingView data. Onchain investigator ZachXBT reported Friday that funds stolen from Binance and September’s Bitget hack had passed through THORChain before being combined at the same Ethereum address.
Trezor urged customers who bought devices from CryptoBilis since March to move their funds after a report of a suspected hardware implant. Trezor has urged customers who bought its hardware wallets from former authorized reseller CryptoBilis since March to move their funds after a report of a suspected implant in a Safe 5 device. Trezor said Friday that a customer in Indonesia reported an unauthorized circuit board inside a Trezor Safe 5 bought on Tokopedia in August. According to the report, the suspected implant could capture information displayed on the device’s screen, including wallet recovery phrases, and transmit it over a cellular network. Trezor said it had not yet examined the device and had received no reports of related losses.
Michael Saylor says Strategy could create up to $30 billion in digital credit without new common-stock fundraising or further Bitcoin price gains, as the company plans more BTC purchases. Bitcoin treasury company Strategy is looking to finance more Bitcoin purchases through preferred-share offerings, with executive chairman Michael Saylor saying it has the capacity to create as much as $30 billion in digital credit. During Strategy’s third-quarter earnings call, Saylor said the company could generate the amount using its existing balance sheet, without an additional common-stock capital raise or further Bitcoin price appreciation. “We could create $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion of digital credit,” Saylor said.
TRM Labs says it has high confidence in the attribution, while ZachXBT identified stolen funds from the Binance and Bitget hacks converging at the same address. Cybersecurity researchers from TRM Labs and Chainalysis, along with onchain investigator ZachXBT, have linked the $6.3 billion Binance hack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group. TRM Labs attributed the attack to TraderTraitor with “high confidence,” citing onchain and offchain intelligence. Onchain investigator ZachXBT said funds stolen from Binance and the earlier Bitget exploit were commingled at the same address after moving through THORChain.
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick says the breach could accelerate a shift toward decentralized trading and strengthen his case for Uniswap’s UNI token reaching $100 by 2030. The Binance hack could accelerate a shift in crypto trading toward decentralized exchanges, benefiting Uniswap over the longer term, according to Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick. In an email shared with Cointelegraph, Kendrick said the breach should drive further growth in decentralized exchanges’ share of trading relative to centralized platforms, though investors should wait until after the impact of the Binance attack has time to play out in the markets. “I would encourage investors to re-engage with Uniswap,” said Kendrick. “The decentralized exchange (DEX) has n…
Binance says attackers may have used a compromised DevOps laptop to access internal infrastructure. Update (Oct. 30 at 2:44 am UTC): This article has been updated to include Binance’s preliminary investigation into the security breach. Binance said its initial investigation into the multi-billion crypto breach has pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop. The exchange said the laptop compromise may have allowed an attacker to access a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. It said it had found no evidence of a wallet private-key leak, though its investigation remains ongoing.
Bitcoin and Ether tumbled as the broader crypto market fell 3.3%, with reports of suspicious multibillion-dollar transfers from Binance-linked wallets fueling uncertainty. Cryptocurrency markets fell sharply Thursday as reports of a potential multibillion-dollar hack involving Binance wallets rattled investors, sending BNB down more than 7% and pushing the broader market lower. The selloff coincided with reports of suspicious transfers involving Binance-linked wallets. Blockchain security firm Blockaid identified approximately $3.3 billion in suspicious transfers, while Arkham Intelligence tracked roughly $5.84 billion in assets held by wallets labeled “binance-hacker-1029,” though neither figure represents a confirmed theft amount. BNB, the native token of BNB Chain, traded near $702, dow…
Singapore police say tampered Ledgers started showing up there on September 10. South Korean lawmakers look set to delay the crypto tax law for a fourth time. Singapore police say at least two cases involving tampered Ledger hardware wallets have been reported since Sept. 10, with combined losses of about 3.5 million Singapore dollars ($2.7 million). It places the first local report almost a month before the wider incident became public. It’s not clear from the October 28 consumer alert if the September 10 case was reported to police at the time, or was made retrospectively. If the report was timely, it raises questions as to whether Ledger was informed, or if the Singapore Police Force was in a position to issue a public warning earlier. However, the October 28 advisory suggested the poli…
Follow live updates as Binance says $2.54 billion in assets has been frozen after a multibillion-dollar hack, with further freezes possible as investigators trace funds. Oct. 29 at 11:40 pm UTC Ripple is freezing holdings of its dollar-pegged RLUSD stablecoin linked to the Binance hack, according to Jack McDonald, the company’s senior vice president of stablecoins. McDonald said Ripple was “actively freezing affected funds” and coordinating with relevant parties to support the investigation. He did not disclose the amount frozen.
A new 1kx report finds that public companies are capturing a larger share of blockchain revenue, driven by institutional adoption and real-world applications. Publicly traded companies accounted for 16% of blockchain industry revenue in 2026, more than double their 7% share in 2022, according to a new report from crypto investment firm 1kx. The increase comes as overall blockchain revenue is projected to decline 28% year over year to roughly $100 billion in 2026. The report analyzed data from more than 2,600 protocols and earnings reports from 104 publicly traded companies through the third quarter. The researchers attributed the growing share of public companies partly to new stock market listings, including stablecoin issuer Circle, which went public in 2025, and revenue growth among exi…
The prediction markets platform halted trading on Thursday after it reported one of its third party providers had been compromised. Prediction markets company Polymarket reported its Predictions Trading API had experienced a “major outage,” resulting in the platform temporarily halting trading. In a Thursday update to its status page, Polymarket said that the platform was in “cancel-only” mode after it had identified and fixed an issue impacting its operations. As of 7:05 pm UTC, the platform reported all its systems were operational. “One of our third party providers was compromised, and we have referred this to relevant law enforcement,” said Polymarket. “Anyone who has been impacted will be made whole.”
