Binance’s signature Binance Smart Chain is the latest to suffer from an exploit, and the chain is “temporarily paused,” according to the official BNB Chain Twitter account and Binance’s CZ.
The Binance Bridge appears to have seen 2M Bitcoins (or over $500M as of publication) in the hours immediately following hack. The response has been criticized by many. Let’s take a look at the details we know thus far.
Binance Bridge Can’t Avoid The ‘Bridge Problem’
One of the biggest issues around crypto vulnerabilities often seems to be bridges – where movement from one chain to another adds a layer of complexity that has proved to be a challenge. Paradigm research @samczsun (who has a thread detailing the exploit), BSC Token Hub bridge was used by the attacker to send two transactions totaling 1M BNB each.
Early reports indicate that tokens weren’t owned by users, but tokens which were inaccessible before exploit.
Today's exploit had an impact on Binance's BNB token. Source: BNB-USD on TradingView.com | Source: BNB-USD on TradingView.com
Criticism about Halting the Chain
BSC reps went on to explain that they “coordinated with validators to temporarily suspend BSC,” which led to many critics emerging around the degree of centralization surrounding the chain. It seems that today’s hack is the second largest in history, and while Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has assured holders that their funds are safe, there’s still a lot to discover here.
Featured image taken from Pixabay. Charts taken from TradingView.com Disclaimer: The author of this content has not been associated or affiliated to any of these parties. This article is not meant to provide financial advice.
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