Hackers stole more than US$8 billion from Binance, Bybit, and Bitget in twenty months. None of the attacks captured the master passwords, known as private keys. In every case, the exchanges’ internal withdrawal approval systems were deceived.
The risk extends beyond users of these platforms. Coinbase, which has reported no similar thefts, holds the Bitcoin behind most spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. Its safeguards therefore also protect Wall Street’s money.
How did hackers break into three exchanges?
Binance lost about $6.3 billion on October 29. Co-CEO Richard Teng said the $6 billion theft began with an engineer’s laptop being compromised. The company found no evidence that keys had been leaked.
“… To be clear: the attacker didn’t use only an engineer’s permissions, and this wasn’t a single ‘one-click’ action,” Teng said.
Bybit lost nearly $1.5 billion in February 2025, in the biggest hack in cryptocurrency history at the time. Hackers inserted malicious code into Safe{Wallet}, an external app Bybit used to approve transfers. Employees saw one destination while signing for another. The FBI blamed North Korea.
Bitget lost about $387.5 million in September. The attackers exploited vulnerabilities in third-party security products, and fraudulent withdrawal orders were authenticated normally by the exchange’s system.
What does Coinbase do differently?
Coinbase uses multiparty computation (MPC), a technique that splits each key into fragments stored on separate machines. Institutional co-CEO Greg Tusar explained the model in 2025.
“MPC ensures that complete private keys are never stored at rest or present on any single machine during the signing or use process,” Tusar explained.
The company also says it develops all critical security software in-house. By contrast, the breaches at Bitget and Bybit originated with third-party providers.
Researcher Zeeme says the method blocks the attack vectors used in all three attacks, since a compromised laptop would yield only one useless piece of a key.
Why Hackers Hit Binance, Bybit & Bitget — Still Can’t Touch Coinbase: 🧵👇
959K BTC. $103.31 Billion. 14 Years. 🔒
1. No Giant Honeypot — 69.8M Separate Addresses
Most exchanges pool billions inside a few live "hot wallets" for fast withdrawals.@coinbase doesn’t do that.… pic.twitter.com/aku0RReIbo
— Zeeme ⚡ | On-Chain Research (@0x_zeeme) November 1, 2026
Arkham data shows that Coinbase wallets hold about 959,000 BTC across 69.8 million addresses, equivalent to $74.7 billion at Bitcoin’s current price.
“Coinbase is secure. We’re monitoring price volatility, tracking diverted assets ‘on-chain,’ and maintaining the highest level of vigilance,” said Rob Witoff, Coinbase’s chief technology officer.
“We’re blocking transfers to compromised Binance wallets and made adjustments to our cold storage systems as a precaution. To reiterate,” said Jeff Lunglhofer, Coinbase’s CSO.
No platform is immune to security incidents
Coinbase isn’t free from breaches either. In 2025, criminals bribed outsourced support staff to obtain customer data. According to The Register, the losses ranged from $180 million to $400 million, but the company said the funds were never accessible to the criminals.
The company’s size is also a risk. In April, researcher Marc Baumann calculated that Coinbase holds 84% of the assets in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, or about $77 billion under the custody of a single company.
Not all issuers rely solely on Coinbase. Fidelity holds its own Bitcoin fund in custody, while Morgan Stanley lists BNY as its second custodian.
For ETF investors, the test is whether Coinbase’s controls work where others failed. All three thefts happened at the approval stage, a process Coinbase says it carefully reviews before authorizing any transfer signature.
The article $8 billion stolen from Binance, Bybit, and Bitget: What does Coinbase do differently? first appeared on BeInCrypto Brasil.