Cryptocurrencies fell in overnight trade over concerns that Binance was hacked
Binance is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges globally based on trade volume, and yesterday's incident shows that no exchange - no matter how big - is exempt from security breaches.
Hackers exploited users who created API keys - and somehow managed to even get those who had them IP-restricted - and decided to use those accounts to flood the exchange with buy orders for Viacoin.
The influx of buy orders saw Viacoin's market cap jump from $64 million to $159 million in a matter of minutes. It is likely the hacker had holdings in Viacoin and wanted to inflate the price so he/she/they could sell it on another exchange. Your typical "pump and dump" scheme.
A lot of users were sure that their funds are gone and they were left with nothing in the aftermath. And Binance even halted all withdrawals temporarily during the chaos.
But after some quick response to the situation, Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng said that all irregular trades have been reversed and that all deposit, trading and withdrawal has resumed in a Twitter post here. In that same post, Zhao claims that the hackers interestingly lost coins during their attempt and that those coins recovered will be donated to Binance Charity.
It's another case of security problems that continue to plague the cryptocurrency space and in the midst of the panic we saw Bitcoin price fell by almost 10% on the day - dropping below $10,000.
