Hackers have stolen $570 million worth of tokens from a blockchain bridge used in the BNB Chain, which was known as Binance Smart Chain until February.
Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said hackers stole around $100 million worth of crypto. BNB Chain said in a blog post that a total of 2 million of the cryptocurrency BNB – worth around $570 million – was withdrawn by the hacker.
Binance spokesperson said in emailed comments that the majority of the BNB remained in the hacker’s digital wallet address, while about $100 million worth was unrecovered.
BNB Chain supports the BNB cryptocurrency, formerly known as Binance Coin, which is the world’s fifth-largest token with a market value of some $46 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
Some $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen in 13 different bridge hacks, mostly this year, crypto analytics firm Chainalysis said in August.
In March, hackers stole around $615 million from Ronin Bridge, used to transfer crypto in and out of the game Axie Infinity, in one of the largest crypto heists on record. The United States linked North Korean hackers to the theft.
BNB Chain suspended its blockchain for several hours before resuming at around 0630 GMT, it said in a tweet.
It said in its blog post that BNB Chain was able to stop the incident from spreading by contacting the blockchain’s validators, – entities or individuals who verify blockchain transactions. BNB Chain said there are 44 validators across several different time zones, without giving further details.
BNB Chain said it would introduce a new governance mechanism to counter future hacks, as well as to expand the number of validators.
