Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, said the market response to the exchange’s latest hack looks less surprising when the loss is measured in Bitcoin rather than in dollar terms.
In a post on X published at about 12:01 a.m. Taipei time on Oct. 31, CZ responded to discussion over the apparent mismatch between the scale of the hot wallet breach and Bitcoin’s relatively limited decline. He said the incident, valued at about $6.3 billion, can be described as one of the largest ever in U.S. dollar terms. By BTC count, though, it was not on the same scale as Mt. Gox.
CZ referred to observations that Bitcoin fell less than 5% after a major exchange hack, a move some had read as bullish. He shifted the focus to the yardstick used to judge the shock, arguing that the headline dollar figure alone does not tell the full story.
Dollar value was larger, but BTC loss was not
CZ shared a comparison chart with Mt. Gox, credited to Matthew Roszak. The chart said the Binance loss was worth about $6.36 billion at current prices, versus roughly $450 million to $500 million for Mt. Gox at the time.
The asset mix was very different. Binance’s stolen funds were described as a basket of tokens that included about 18,270 BTC and roughly 420,000 ETH. Mt. Gox, by contrast, lost about 650,000 to 850,000 BTC.
Supply share gave Mt. Gox a heavier market footprint
CZ said the proportion of Bitcoin’s total supply is another key measure. He wrote that Mt. Gox represented more than 5% of Bitcoin supply at the time. This time, by comparison, the loss accounted for only a small share of the total crypto market value in 2026, which he said helps explain why price swings were not amplified by the “largest ever” dollar label.
Who takes the loss matters to the market
CZ said the more important question is who was affected and whether the platform can absorb the damage in full. He cited Mt. Gox and FTX as cases that came close to hitting all user assets. In the Binance case, he said, the exchange is covering the loss with company funds, leaving the damage concentrated on the platform itself.
He acknowledged that the incident was still a major blow to both Binance and the broader industry. Even so, he said the priority is protecting users. In that framing, the market read the event more as a single institution absorbing losses than as a system-wide liquidity run.
Related updates from Binance
Related reports said a Binance spokesperson clarified that the stolen funds came from a hot wallet and that customer assets stored in cold wallets were not affected. Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said withdrawals could reopen within 40 hours and that the exchange would publish a proof-of-reserves report on Monday. Binance also said it had started replenishing the stolen assets and had prepared tokens corresponding to $5 billion.
Separately, Yi He released a four-minute video saying Binance had faced a “very complex composite attack” and would use its own funds for compensation first.
