On the evening of October 29, 2026, hackers stole an estimated $6.3 billion from the Binance crypto exchange, marking the largest hack in crypto history. Despite the breach, Binance assured customers that it would cover all losses and still had sufficient funds to make good on that promise. The exchange's blockchain and its native token, BNB, were not directly affected by the attack, though BNB's price dropped nearly 7% in the 24 hours following the breach. Over the last three years, however, BNB is still up by 212%.
By October 30, Binance's partners had frozen at least $3 billion of the stolen funds, and the exchange had set aside $6.3 billion to compensate affected customers. The hack temporarily reduced Binance's Ethereum reserves to about 94% of customer balances, but by October 31, the reserves were fully backed again. Importantly, the hackers did not steal any BNB, leaving the coin's supply unaffected. BNB's value is tied to investor trust in Binance, and there is little evidence that the hack has significantly eroded that trust.
The long-term investment case for BNB remains weak. The BNB Chain destroys BNB coins quarterly through its Auto-Burn mechanism and reduces supply through transaction fees. However, transaction fees on the BNB Chain have not grown over the last three years, suggesting that demand for blockchain use is not consistently increasing. This undermines the idea that BNB will be a strong long-term investment, even if its price could rise in the future.
Alex Carchidi, who has positions in Ethereum, and The Motley Fool, which recommends BNB, were mentioned in the article. The content was syndicated and not reviewed or endorsed by the publisher.