Assets frozen after possible Binance hack

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Thursday said it had frozen US$3 billion in crypto assets as it investigated a potential security breach, with stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether freezing related assets. "Binance will cover all hacking losses," Binance co-founder Yi He said, without providing more details about the incident. The market impact of the possible hacking, which could be the largest-ever crypto heist according to analytics firm Chainalysis, was felt immediately in early Asian trading on Friday. Bitcoin dropped about two percent to a six-week low of US$77,646 and ether fell around two percent to a two-month low of US$2,238.76. BNB, a token originally launched as Binance Coin that can be used to pay Binance fees, was down more than eight percent over the past 24 hours at US$694, according to market aggregator CoinGecko. Crypto exchange Coinbase Global slid 4.8 percent while those of bitcoin buyer Strategy fell nearly six percent in extended US trading. Binance said the amount frozen could increase as it worked with law enforcement agencies, token issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and other industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the company, said in a post on X that the incident "looked...