Binance Theft Converts $175M in Altcoins Into About 2,300 BTC

Bitcoin.com and Blockonomi report that blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has linked roughly 2,300 BTC to the attacker behind the reported Binance breach. According to both outlets, the attacker used $175 million derived from stolen altcoins to acquire the Bitcoin, changing the form of assets already taken in the incident rather than documenting a separate theft from Binance. Bitcoin.com describes the wider incident as a $6.3 billion hack in which 18,270.2 BTC was drained from the exchange’s wallet. The same outlet says Elliptic has found that the attacker’s Bitcoin holdings are increasing. Those figures and the broader loss characterization appear only in the Bitcoin.com summary, while the $175 million conversion and approximately 2,300 BTC acquisition are corroborated by Blockonomi. Blockonomi provides more detail on Elliptic’s investigation, reporting that the firm traced more than 20,000 wallets across 16 blockchains. Its analysis identifies at least 36 services and 65,000 transactions involved in laundering the stolen assets. Elliptic also tracked 88 BTC entering coinjoins through a November 7 account, according to Blockonomi, which presents the conversion process as an attempt to obscure the origin of the funds. The movement into Bitcoin brings the stolen assets into the same asset used for settlement and investment across the broader crypto market. It does not change the reported $175 million value of the conversion, but it concentrates the attacker’s holdings in a single asset whose price was $75,751 at the time of the market snapshot. The exchanges themselves are not described as currently moving the funds, and the supplied coverage does not indicate whether the holdings have entered an exchange or another trading venue. The wider crypto market was flat, with a total capitalization of $2.61 trillion, as Bitcoin was essentially unchanged over 24 hours at a 0.07% gain. Bitcoin’s seven-day decline was steeper at 2.43%, while its market capitalization stood at $1.52 trillion. The Fear and Greed Index registered 25, labeled Extreme Fear. The next stage to monitor is whether Elliptic identifies further transfers, conversions or attempts to obscure ownership of the accumulated Bitcoin.