Crypto Crash After Binance Hack: $628 Million Liquidated in One Hour

The crypto market is crashing on Thursday night, and the trigger is Binance. At 20:24 UTC a hot wallet of the world's largest crypto exchange was drained in a single transaction, with roughly $2.8 billion leaving on Ethereum. Within the next hour Bitcoin slid from $80,327 to $78,763, BNB lost up to 6.3%, and about $628 million in leveraged positions were force-closed in one hour. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao says it "does look like a hack", while Binance itself says it is investigating reports of a potential security issue. Tether and Circle have frozen around $2.4 billion in stablecoins.

The technical details of the drained wallet are in our Binance hack report. This article is about the market: who sold when, which coins fell hardest and what could come next as Asia wakes up. For the bigger picture of why crypto falls in shocks like this, see our continuously updated explainer Why is crypto down today?

Crypto crash timeline: what happened, minute by minute

Almost an hour passed between the first on-chain move and the first word from the Binance camp. In that window the market traded purely on blockchain data.

Time (UTC)	Event
20:20	The wallet labelled "Binance 14" is delegated via EIP-7702 to an outside smart contract (transaction on Etherscan).
20:24	167,464 ETH and 63 other tokens move in one transaction to a new address that Etherscan now tags "Binance Hot Wallet Exploiter 2".
20:39	Around 195,460 ETH are pushed on to another address.
20:41	780 million USDC leave a second address linked to the wallet.
20:50	BNB hits its evening low of $692, 6.3% below its 20:15 level.
21:00	Bitcoin drops to $78,763. Ether, Solana and XRP bottom at 21:05.
21:15	Changpeng Zhao writes on X that user funds are safe but that it does look like a hack.
21:18	Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire reports more than 800 million USDC frozen, in coordination with law enforcement.
21:24	Binance officially says it is aware of reports of a potential security issue and is investigating.
21:25	Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reports more than 1.567 billion USDT frozen.

Prices from CoinGecko in five-minute steps, blockchain data from Etherscan. The attacker's address was funded with 0.1 ETH from the mixer Tornado Cash, a common pattern to hide where the gas money came from.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and BNB: how hard did they fall?

BNB, Binance's own token, takes the heaviest hit. Bitcoin holds up better than the altcoins but loses the $80,000 mark it was trading above in the afternoon.

Coin	Price 20:15 UTC	Evening low	Price 21:25 UTC	Drop to low
Bitcoin	$80,327	$78,763 (21:00)	$79,371	−1.9%
Ethereum	$2,313	$2,251 (21:05)	$2,284	−2.6%
Solana	$98.94	$95.64 (21:05)	$97.48	−3.3%
BNB	$738.90	$692.32 (20:50)	$710.75	−6.3%
XRP	$1.27	$1.24 (21:05)	$1.26	−2.7%

Over 24 hours, CoinMarketCap showed Bitcoin down 2.6% at 21:23 UTC, Ethereum down 3.6%, Solana 5.3%, XRP 5.8% and BNB 6.1%. Total crypto market capitalization shrank to $2.65 trillion. Where analysts see Bitcoin by year-end is collected in our Bitcoin price prediction.

Two coins buck the trend. Hyperliquid (HYPE) is up 15% in 24 hours and Tron (TRX) almost 5%. For Hyperliquid the reading is obvious: it is a decentralized exchange on its own blockchain, so traders do not leave coins with a company that can be hacked.

$628 million liquidated in one hour

The slide is driven less by coin sales than by leverage. According to CoinGlass data cited by PANews, around $628 million in positions were force-closed within one hour, about $607 million of them bets on rising prices.

The mechanism never changes. A trader long with 10x leverage loses the collateral after a drop of roughly 10%, with 20x after 5%. When prices fall, the exchange closes these positions automatically and sells in the process. Each forced sale pushes the price lower and triggers the next wave. That is why BNB falls even though no BNB was stolen.

Why is Solana falling when only ETH, USDT and USDC were drained?

The attacker took Ether, stablecoins and Ethereum tokens. Solana has nothing to do with the incident, yet it drops more than Bitcoin. The reason is market structure: almost every coin trades against Bitcoin, Ether, USDT or USDC. When those pairs move, everything moves with them. Binance is also the main trading venue for many altcoins, and traders who fear withdrawal problems sell first and ask later. Solana was already weak before the hack, slipping below $100 after spot Solana ETFs lost $24.8 million on October 27 and 28, as crypto.news reported.

What comes next: Asia and Friday

The evening is only the start. Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong open around midnight UTC, and a large share of Binance users sits in Asia. Three things will decide whether the selling continues:

• Binance's next statement. So far the exchange only confirms it is investigating. If it confirms the loss and covers it from its own funds or its SAFU emergency fund, pressure eases.
• Withdrawals. Normal withdrawals are the strongest signal. DefiLlama still showed about $144 billion in customer assets on Binance addresses at 21:15 UTC.
• The attacker's Ether. Most stablecoins are frozen, but around 195,000 ETH cannot be frozen. If the attacker sells them through decentralized exchanges, Ether faces extra pressure in the coming days.

On Friday at 08:00 UTC the monthly October options on Deribit expire, which often amplifies moves in either direction.

What to do now if you hold coins on Binance

• Check whether withdrawals work and move larger holdings to a wallet only you control. Our hardware wallet comparison shows suitable devices.
• Stay away from leverage tonight. The liquidation wave showed how fast positions get closed.
• Do not sell into the spike without a reason that reaches beyond tonight. After the Bybit hack in February 2025 losses were covered and prices recovered, even if it took days.

This article is not investment advice. Crypto assets are highly volatile and you can lose your entire investment. We will update this article as Binance completes its investigation.