One of the dangers of cryptocurrency is that there’s no guarantee that your money will be safe after hacking incidents like what happened to Axie Infinity back in March. The latest to fall victim to hacking was Binance, where their blockchain network BNB Smart Chain lost two million BNB crypto tokens to hackers. Issued by Binance, the stolen tokens were reportedly valued at $570 million.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted about the incident, initially stating that around $100 million worth of crypto was stolen due to hacking. In a later update, Binance said that the amount Zhao tweeted remained “unrecovered” and was moved off the blockchain by hackers. The remaining funds, on the other hand, were frozen on the BNB Smart Chain.
How did Binance succumb to a hacking incident? Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic explained that similar to what happened to Axie, hackers targeted Binance’s bridges, which is an infrastructure where crypto assets are exchanged between blockchains. These bridges usually hold a large reserve of various crypto coins, making them a prime target for hackers.
Aside from Axie, other hacking incidents that involve bridges include Nomad, where they lost $190 million worth of crypto in August, and Harmony, which lost $100 million in June.
