CZ tells Elon Musk to stop trolling Binance over hack
Binance's co-founder asked Musk to stop mocking the exchange after a record $6.4 billion hack, pointing to its SpaceX shares and the funds it has set aside.
The facts
- According to Decrypt, at least $6.4 billion was taken from Binance-linked wallets on Thursday, October 29, across several blockchains. Decrypt's summary box says $6.3 billion, so the exact total is not settled.
- CZ posted that Binance's SpaceX shares, from a $500m Twitter investment, are worth more than $1 billion. Co-CEO Yi He replied that the exchange's revenue for the year can cover the losses without selling them.
- Binance says it has reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds, including $5 billion already held in the stolen tokens. TRM Labs and Chainalysis attribute the attack to North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor.
- Tether and Circle froze about $2.39 billion in total. Ethereum cannot be frozen by an issuer, which makes it harder to stop stolen funds once they are converted.
Case notes · Danny's take
Why it matters
The Musk and CZ exchange is the loud part. The quiet part is the recovery gap. Stablecoin issuers can freeze funds, so the thieves ran for Ethereum, which has no issuer to call. If you hold USDT as dollar savings, as many people in Lagos do, that cuts both ways: the issuer can lock a thief's coins, and it can lock yours too.
For traders
Ignore the X banter and watch the evidence. Track how the stolen funds move through Uniswap, Aave and fresh Ethereum addresses, and whether Binance's reserve and purchase claims show up on-chain. Treat the attribution to TraderTraitor as the analytics firms' finding, not a court verdict, and size down around headline candles.
For builders
Freeze powers help after a theft only when the stolen asset has an issuer. Think about monitoring that flags funds moving into DEXs and lending protocols fast, and about custody setups that don't depend on one set of keys.
Not financial advice. Do your own investigation.
This story was summarised with AI from Decrypt's reporting and checked against our editorial policy. Danny's take reflects his views. Disclaimer.
Danny Walter
Founder of Moon Republic, Volt Terminal and Moon Republic Academy. Author of The Market Is a Crime Scene and After the Applause.