After waking up naturally today, I saw it had fallen to around 770 and immediately sprang into action, though I had no idea why. Once I sat down and looked into it, I found out Binance had been hacked. About 5.6 billion worth of tokens were involved, and the corresponding USDC and USDT—worth 2.4 billion—had already been frozen by Tether and Circle. Binance’s total losses are around 3 billion.

As someone who has been through three bull and bear market cycles, this doesn’t faze me much. Exchanges used to just disappear with users’ assets, leaving them worth nothing. After going through FTX, I learned that you can still file claims. Binance is financially strong, so this won’t affect its users. Bybit, Bitget, and now Binance have all been hacked and come through just fine, without users being affected. That in itself is a huge step forward.

The attack is suspected to have been carried out by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group, and I think that's very likely. CZ has a technical background, and breaching Binance's security systems would take a very high level of skill. I won't gloat over this incident. I hope Binance recovers, because Binance going down would do us no good. Besides, exchanges across the crypto industry have really come together this time, all trying to help Binance. Xu Mingxing and CZ were publicly feuding on Twitter before, making headlines, but now they're united against a common threat. That's a really great thing.

The coins and amounts stolen by the hackers in this incident are as follows (data from publicly available online sources):

USDT (Tether): approximately $1.7688 billion (holdings: 1.7688B USDT)

· BTC (Bitcoin): approximately $1.44 billion (holdings: 18.27K BTC)

· ETH (Ethereum): approximately $1.04 billion (holdings: 460.568K ETH)

· USDC (USD Coin): approximately $823 million (holdings: 823M USDC)

· TRX (Tron): approximately $240.8 million (holdings: 684.584M TRX)

· SOL (Solana): approximately $93.77 million (970.538K SOL)

· WBETH (Wrapped Binance (https://web3.binance.com/referral?ref=QRJ0IWHG) Beacon ETH): approximately $75.13 million (29.934K WBETH)

· AETHUSDT (Aave Ethereum USDT): approximately $60 million (60.001M AETHUSDT)

· XAUT (Tether Gold): approximately $50.38 million (12.574K XAUT)

· RLUSD (Ripple USD): approximately $40.54 million (40.541M RLUSD)

· ENA (Ethena): approximately $36.03 million (202.815M ENA)

USD1 (World Liberty Financial USD): approximately $27.82 million (27.824M USD1)

· AVAX (Avalanche): approximately $17.15 million (2.059M AVAX)

· ARB (Arbitrum): approximately $11.52 million (74.56M ARB)

· PEPE: approximately $9.58 million (2.11T PEPE)

· USDe: approximately $9.03 million (9.03M USDe)

· PAXG (Paxos Gold): approximately $7.65 million (1.907K PAXG)

· FUN (FunFair): approximately $6.26 million (714.911M FUN)

· USDT0: approximately $6.19 million (6.186M USDT0)

· ZAMA: approximately $6 million (87.853M ZAMA)

· ZRO (LayerZero): approximately $5.58 million (3.602M ZRO)

· PROM (Prometeus): approximately $5.03 million (911.985K PROM)

I basically only buy spot Bitcoin, so $1.4 billion in selling pressure isn't that much. Apparently, the loss of control happened because the Ethereum EIP-7702 protocol controlled the wallet signatures, allowing the assets to be transferred out. I'm not a tech person, so I don't really understand the technical details. But my experience tells me that when there are on-chain thefts or attacks on exchanges, the Ethereum blockchain has a lot of vulnerabilities. Almost every time, the attack comes through Ethereum; this hardly ever happens on the Bitcoin blockchain, at least in recent years. Hackers seem to prefer stealing Ethereum, probably for technical reasons too. That's an important reason why I've given up on holding spot Ethereum.

By the time I started writing this article, I had already finished buying. Now, let's talk about what might happen next.

1. Crypto exchanges will work together to address security issues and put their past differences aside. Many market makers and investors will get involved, which is a good thing—security comes first. Retail investors like us should also stay alert and protect our funds. I personally spread my funds around, keeping some in wallets and some on different exchanges. That way, if one runs into trouble, I won't lose everything. I can't control these kinds of events, so all I can do is protect myself.

2. Bitcoin may retest its lows, so be prepared. The 76,000 level I predicted earlier has already been reached. I think the decline is probably close to over, but we should still watch out for a second test. If Bitcoin holds steady, we could see it reach around 100,000 this time.

3. There are two potential money-making opportunities in this incident: Aave and XRP. They may have good potential going forward, so keep an eye on them or consider buying at lower prices.

This attack was both understandable and unexpected. The internet is full of dangers—even the US Department of Defense has been breached, let alone an exchange. Still, I didn't expect Binance to be hacked a second time after the previous incident. It was also a strange coincidence that Bitcoin fell to around 76,000, just as I had predicted earlier. The lesson for retail investors like us is that there's no such thing as absolute security, only relative caution. Protect your wealth, and I hope Binance gets through this difficult time safely.

Hang in there, Binance!