It seems like it took some number of minutes and scored billions, and at that point it was a matter of whether/how much they could trade out before it was locked. I don’t know how many minutes or hours it took to lock? If they managed to trade 1% before blocking, that would be an extra tens of millions. If 10% that would be hundreds of millions, etc.

I wonder why not swap them? And had he, would it have bricked the swap pool?

[1] https://x.com/czesmaill/status/2115988477905080716

- much more awkward to use

- more liable to hacks

- deposits are not insured

- fewer legal protections

- doesn’t pay interest (or not easily anyway)

- and as I find out, bannable by a central institution with lower legal oversight than the Fed

I’ll keep a mental note of this.

Managing a wallet where there is no recourse if your wallet is compromised is simply too difficult when even crypto exchanges get hacked and otherwise sophisticated people get compromised when taking cautious measures (eg [1]).

Crypto really is and always was a race to the rug pull.

[1]: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/about-3-5-million-los...

No matter what the reason or the situation, shutting off your access to the technology is their option and it will likely happen at the moment it is a greatest problem to you.

This goes so far beyond "Not your keys, not your coin", it is "Not your stack, not your sovereignty".

Obviously in this case, there is are truly solid rational and moral reasons to shut down those USDT transfers: to cut off the theft which is funding NK's aggressive nuclear weapons program. But that changes nothing about the structure of everyone's vulnerability in using technologies controlled by others such as USDT.

[0] https://newrepublic.com/post/217349/elon-musk-cut-off-ukrain...

oh, and three acounts hold like 25% of all btc in circulation.

crypto can do some things, but decentralization isn't one of them. just ask Coinbase

USD tether is barely crypto at all, it's a wrapper around treasury bonds which the US govt. regulates

For instance to unwind a 5 billion dollar robbery

So crypto + legal company means not really following bitcoin ideology anymore

The feature literally appears to have just saved over two billion USD from being stolen! I mean, fine, "disgusting" is subjective. But the need for the feature is real and quantifiable (and very large) and it did what it advertised.

But a lot (generalizing here) don't like giving up access "in case they need it". I haven't worked backend in ages, but years ago there was one developer that went to the ops guys and said "can I just ssh to production I need to check some env vars to debug my software" (or something to that degree). Ops team was good and it was a hard no - "just add some logging, you can deploy a new release quickly enough".

The nice thing is that using the private key requires physical touch. That means that AI itself (or a remote attacker, for that matter) can't do things unless I confirm.

you know most tools like gcloud, bitwarden, etc store auth keys just in dotfiles too?

Local compromise is KO now, and we can't do shit on platforms like MacOs didn't research Linux recently

Binance/Coinbase use hot wallets, they are not stolen from actual user accounts.

Any withdrawal should only ever be authorized from wallets protected by multisig and every withdrawal should go through several machines, running different implementations of the exchanges' verification part of the codebase, replaying the user's entire deposit/trading/withdrawal history and verifying if the withdrawal the user's asking matches his balance/history.

Devs working on "verification before withdrawal" on one of the stack should be forbidden from ever touching the other stack, and vice-versa.

This would prevent SNAFUs like this one for now at least two devs would need to be independently owned before such a heist could be pulled off.

I'm not saying hacks would be impossible. But the "I still $6 bn in 20 minutes" would be much harder to pull.

Another sensible thing to do would be to not have $6 bn on a warm wallet: I really don't think Binance really that much at all times available on warm wallets?

Nothing is 100% secure: but the "one dev gets its laptop owned, hence $6 bn disappear" is just madness and, as a whole (not speaking about crypto here), we can really do better here.

For a start we can do better than thinking: "Nothing can ever be 100% secure, so there's no way to do better than seeing $6 bn vaporize in thin air when a single dev's laptop gets pwned" (I'm know it's not what you're saying: you're asking what can be done better).

So many are going to think: "But if you do that, it still can be hacked because this and that". Which ain't the point: the point is to make hacks harder to pull off, not to make them impossible to pull off.

[1] https://x.com/binance/status/2115993361517891592

Any organization putting billions of value in the control of any single individual or computer should be treated as though they were caught trying to donate to North Korea with plausible deniability.

But I guess what you are trying to say, is that with current valuations, Mt Gox would've upped their game and would've moved to much more secure architecture and infra.

If so: I doubt it. At the time of the heist, they were still running largely from a PHP monstrosity, that was originally built to trade cards amongst hobbyists. The only thing one could say for the Mt Gox people (Mark Karpelès etc) is that at that time, things moved extremely fast. Tech and infra may be good to trade tens of thousands of $/year one day. But if weeks later you are now trading millions $/year, there's no catching up. In hindsight they should've realized their organization and tech wasn't up to it and should've closed down. Because keeping up was clearly impossible.

*disclaimer: I lost significant amounts at the heist, eventhough I never held more than strictly needed on an exchange.

Any company losing 10 months of revenue overnight is a BIG fucking deal. Doubly so in a speculative asset that you’re holding for others “securely”. The financial hit has only just begun for them.

That said yes the trading volume has huge.

Binance is the largest custodian/exchange out there.

There is selection bias in play now. The remaining people are naturally more risk tolerant. So I agree this second time around, no lessons will be learned.

I no longer dunk on crypto.

Not because crypto got better, but because the joke got old. I got tired of dunking on it.

A bank API can be 10-100s+ kloc if they need that to implement access controls.

Of course, Tether runs completely counter to any of the idealistic claims about crypto.

Binance's reputation is hardly impeccable, but by crypto standards they're kinda sorta the adults in the room. Then again, so was FTX.

[0]: https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/north-korea-steals-us...

The previous strategy North Korea used before Crypto was to make the best quality counterfeit US dollars ever made. That got somewhat countered. So North Korea was actually going to be in a bad place funding wise. Thank goodness everyone gave them trivial access to free money through crypto!

Thanks to Crypto and the Ukraine war, North Korea is doing really well for itself. Which, to be clear, means nuclear tipped ICBMs

think of it this way - if someone steals your iphone, and you lock it, does apple pop? No, apple sells you another one. locked devices are good for apple because it causes more demand.

If you want to use the BC on your computer, you can transfer it to wherever you want.

Pirates wanted gold because they did not belong to any State to issue them IOU.

But owning the gold in a locker and trading with the IOU of the bank means you need to trust the bank instead.

... or when sober.

Assuming they actually can cover the losses financially.

And if they don't good luck suing them.

It took two world wars and the fear of atomic weapons to establish the global cooperation we have now.

It took 9/11 for intelligence services to get over themselves and start sharing information.

It took a financial crisis to realize packaging subprime mortgages into tranches doesn’t suddenly make them AAA credits.

Maybe it will take some hackers doing something that seems improbable to have a framework for regulating the development and distribution of AI.

I’m sure there are cases where people saw calamity coming and circumvented it. When there is the perception of big money and winner takes all dynamics on the line, I wouldn’t bet on people motivated by power and money to do the “right” thing.

So I’d say fasten your seatbelt and be ready for whatever.

First, horses weren’t slow and safe.

Second, cars aren’t autonomous and they have relatively narrow use cases compared to AI.

Third, cars were eventually heavily regulated to prevent accidents and reduce serious injury from inevitable accidents. That’s why you have to wear seatbelts and cars top speeds are regulated.

Fourth , rather than using basing what do about AI on how we handled the introduction of cars, maybe we should focus on the facts, data, evidence specific to AI.

It’s fine to reflect on the past to think about how to build the future. Maybe we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion because we did something in the past we should do it again in a completely different context with a completely different technology.

Edit: fixed the count of points from “Fourth” to “Third” and “Fifth” to “Fourth”

False. There is no omelette. This is all happening because Pandora's box has been opened, and we know that attempts to slow it or regulate it are playing into the hands of the big AI firms who desire regulatory capture.

So it could end up terrible, or not, but either way there's just no way to stop it. The big AI firms getting their way would only slow progress in the countries where they operate. The rest of the world would progress unimpeded. So Big AI would get its paycheck but AI as a broader concept would hardly be slowed at all.

These accidents were on the individual scale, but now we're looking at societal scale accidents. Usually it's smart to insist on a bit more planning and consideration at that level.

For starters, I’d have Congress preemptively do what they would probably do post some AI disaster. Something like form a committee of academic researchers, security professionals, and other people who are incentivized to be skeptical and have them investigate the risks posed by the AI we have and what’s cooking. The aim would be take the risks seriously and propose policies that seek to mitigate those risks.

I’d also, make more of an effort to cooperate with governments to establish some treaty-like agreements about how we will use AI in critical areas like warfare. We have these kind of agreements about biological and nuclear weapons. We can have them about AI weapons, too. Maybe this would cool down the arms race atmosphere.

I would establish some kind of central-bank like authority whose members are protected from congressional and executive-branch meddling and whose mandate is to influence the development of AI in a way that’s universally agreed to be good society. Not sure how this would look and what their levers would be, but I think something similar to the Feds mandate to balance employment and inflation, but the AI version, would be worth exploring.

Finally, I wouldn’t wait until AI has replaced people and hyper scalers are sitting on trillions to have a plan for how millions of people are supposed to make a living when they can’t find work anymore because agents and robots are doing the jobs they used to do. I think we’re still a ways away from that reality. But having a framework, better yet policies, in place would probably make people feel a lot better about the development of AI. If everyone knows they’re going to get a UBI check for 5K plus access to a solid state sponsored healthcare plan for them and their immediate family when AI makes us all redundant, I don’t think people would be so apprehensive to AI and data centers.

Again, I’m not a policy maker. I’m sure there are a bunch of externalities that people can point out to poke holes in my ideas. Be my guest.

Sitting around doing what amounts to jack shit while the technology that powers the internet seems increasingly vulnerable to the technology we’re building and distributing as fast as possible definitely is not the way to go.

The credit markets seem concerned about the timing of the AI booms future cash flows. So maybe the invisible hand will take care of the situation for awhile. I just hope the unwinding doesn’t take the rest of the economy down with it.

Either way AI is here to stay. So, even if the bubble burst, when the market inevitably comes back the same issues will be there. Better to get ahead then not.

That's one of my main gripes with bitcoin and all the others today. I don't agree with some of the original bitcoin papers ideas and goals, but at least the idea if being peer to peer makes sense.

The fact that today both securing and using these "currencies" requires a centralized service completely ruins the point of them. At best they're faster than wire transfers, at worst they're just a means to gamble on less regulated assets.

https://nypost.com/2025/11/25/us-news/sam-altmans-ex-boyfrie...

Whoever went for this has some balls.

The hack is purely technical in nature.

This could have been the FED's system that got compromised and the response would have been the same.

Oh, no, sorry - it wouldn't because we wouldn't even know it happened as FED is fully opaque while crypto is quite transparent.

In that sense crypto is much more democratic because at least there's some ability for the public to audit it. With FED there's none.

it is wild to me that people expect that crypto is supposed to solve a problem that is as old as currency.

For me bitcoin opened up the idea that we could maybe do money better. That idea still lives, but not in practice. Yet.

I'd be really curious to know what their security architecture was.

Depends on what you’re insuring, no? For theft, it actually makes senses, right? That way, you’re insuring a constant number of coins, no matter what the market is doing. If you’re insurance currency would tank during a bitcoin heist, you would lose the insurance effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelF6zEHXpE

[1] https://people.com/trump-pardons-changpeng-zhao-binance-cryp...

Not making any market predictions here-- just saying that it's probably not that useful to generalize from that event.

I downloaded Binance's self published market data (https://data.binance.vision/), calculated spot and futures volume for the past year, and then applied their *highest fee tier* on both sides of the volume (for every $1 traded, they generate a fee on the taker and the maker. the fee rate is asymmetrical).

Spot revenue worked out to $7.6B USD, perps revenue worked out to $13.8B

This is an upper bound on the fees charged on volume. Binance also scams their users with a b-book, has DMM deals, etc.

I don't want to get into all that today.

But the final result is that they print somewhere in the range of $20B per year on fees. I guess CZ also has huge stockpiles of BTC and stuff. A 1% rise in BTC price probably means more for them than their actual fees, LOL.

All this to say, I think $5.6B significantly hurts.

See Google's stock price today. Their ads business slowed down a bit, and their stock tanked 10%. If binance was publicly traded, I imagine a similar affect would be demonstrated on their price.

Given things like the ledger hardware attack[1] I think the time indexed risk of using a centralized exchange is probably lower than doing self-custody.

I understand that many people do self-custody for philosophical reasons, but I think trying to disguise this as a security decision ("If your crypto was stolen in this, it wasn't your crypto.") is arguable at best.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/70f69253-6017-4259-95c9-48bf0e088...

There apparently is no such thing as “your crypto” with how many security problems there are.

That's an odd way of phrasing it, since the $1 is still worth $1, and a naive reading would make you think it's "worth more" when the buying power has actually reduced.

Wouldn't it be clearer to say $1 today only buys you 64% of what you could have bought in 2008.

This is mathematically provable:

1. A dollar in 2008 could buy 1/14tn of the value created by the US economy (the GDP) in 2008.

2. A dollar today can only buy 1/32tn of the value created by the economy in 2025.

It's obvious a 2025-2026 dollar is worth less than a 2008 dollar. That's just math.

But. A dollar in 2008 could buy 230% more of the economy than it can today. And you say its purchasing power has only eroded 64%. That means the dollar is actually worth more today, compared to the size of the economy it's in. Weird, I know.

EDIT: I'm fine with downvotes but tell me why I'm wrong.

Ethereum never did it again, rolling back hacks didn’t (and couldn’t) become normal policy. IMO, they shouldn’t have made an exception, as it set a bad example.

I’ve seen a few other small projects attempt to do rollbacks since, but it usually turns into some kind of mess. In most hacks, the coins aren’t time-locked and quickly get laundered through smaller exchanges (and other services) which act as mixers. The stolen coins end up in the hands of a bunch of innocent people, and the rollback then causes way more harm as those users lose their coins.

As far as I understand blockchain, that is the system working as intended. Some nodes choose to run Ethereum Classic and some choose to run Ethereum. Isn't that the whole point? Decentralisation?

Edit: the downvotes are suggesting I'm missing something. I think my communication style could be improved.

Isn't that a pretty integral part of the blockchain? 51% attacks were even featured on the HBO show Silicon Valley.

Unless the house is monero or something and you want a lifetime supply of drugs.

- was conducted from his gaming rig

- about Deltec's (and therefore Tether's) money movements being several times larger than all the banking in their country was due to people misunderstanding the country's two banking licenses, the names of which HE "couldn't remember right now" (the Deputy CEO of a bank who can't remember the name of the banking licenses where they operate?!?), and he "wasn't sure which [banking license] the bank has, but we might (emphasis mine) have both"

- oh yeah, said Deputy CEO's "resume": 33 years old, by his LinkedIn claimed to have graduated HEC Lausanne in Switzerland with a Master of Science at the age of 15... celebrating his graduation by immediately being named Professor of Finance at a university in Lebanon. While dividing his spare time between running hedge funds in Switzerland (called Indepedance [sic] Weath [sic] Management) and uhh... Jacksonville, FL.

Once CNBC's viewers started ridiculing and questioning both Deltec Bank and Tether and when that looked hilariously bad, they removed his info from the bank's website.

And when that looked bad, they added it back.

And when that looked bad, they removed the bank's whole website, and replaced it with a broken WP template with no working links.

Hey, look, several years after that, go to Deltec's website. "Ultra sophisticated private banking" running on a different WordPress site. "Client login"? "This site can’t be reached Check if there is a typo in ebanking.deltecbank.com. DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN". Just as has been the case for years.

... and then the entire bank website was replaced with a low-effort WordPress template. Their online banking was Javascript hard coded to refuse all login attempts.

"Sounds legit to me", said the crypto bros. "Fuck the regulatory system. This is the new era."

Your usual non-crypto millinare likely have less money to steal on them than average grandma. Fiat millionare likely have two credit cards and $100 in a pocket. Or useless iPhone with Apple pay. So there is zero profit in trying to rob fiat millionare or billionare and tons of downsides.

And moving any amounts of transparent crypto over $100,000 just paints huge "rob me" target on your person.

And then there are centrally issued and controlled coins on private, permissioned ledgers a.k.a. databases. But most cryptobros never cared about the technology nor the political goal, so anything can be called a cryptocurrency as long as it's a medium for gambling and speculation outside the regulated financial framework.

Now the traditional banking system is basically rebuilt in crypto. The banks are busy the exchanges. The EU even talk about making it illegal to store money in your own wallet.

When I first bought bitcoin, I put 10% of my net worth in it. That was long time ago and it has appreciated nicely since. But if I were to lose my bitcoin, I would not be devastated.

I believe in the tech and the movement behind it, but I also never put all my eggs in one basket.

I've made this comment before, but crypto always makes me think of bearer's bonds in fiction, where they always introduce the concept and very carefully emphasize to the characters that if they let go of it, even for a second, it's gone, and it's super important to keep hands on them at all times, and the whole scene is just on the nose foreshadowing that the bearer bonds will absolutely be stolen.

Well, the concept of "this belongs to whoever is holding it" felt like pretty heavy-handed foreshadowing for crypto too, and what do you know?

Marge: Homer, what are you doing?

Homer: Listen, do you want the job done right or do you want it done fast?

Marge: Well, like all Americans, fast, but...

Homer: Clear _lights firecracker_

Andy's quote is made even more absurd when you consider how long it takes Proton to deliver even industry baseline features.

Maybe get to baseline before you start talking about "speed", Andy.

Works for whom? For the customer, "works" means the features work. Security is a vague, nebulous thought at the back of their minds.

The provider provides features. Lack of security has no impact on them, not in the short term and not in the long term. The short term we can't change easily, because people are people. The long term we could: regulation can turn negligent security into a lasting cost.

As much I'm against more regulation in general, I'm afraid as long as we don't do that, companies will always prioritize more features faster over security.

The world economy is also being propped up by all of this. In all likelihood, this Binance hack is only a preview of what's to come.

People seem to think Proton Mail is a serious organization. His tone is the least of the problems.

To build up a decade of goodwill to just admit to being reckless with our data is unacceptable.

Calling his customers (by proxy of his employees) losers for wanting security is wild.

The bottom line is that we are in a new world. "CEO" & "CTO" is dead.

Engineering is not, nor is expertise. Your new job as a builder is to build your own thing and directly undermine all potential profits at shithole companies like Proton.