WuBlockchain on Nov. 2 published its daily crypto news selection, covering the laundering trail tied to stolen Binance funds, fresh ETH and BTC treasury purchases, a new security alert, and two criminal cases involving virtual currency settlements.
Elliptic says 44% of the stolen Binance funds have been frozen
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said in a report update dated Nov. 2 that laundering activity tied to the roughly $6.43 billion stolen from Binance has spread across 11 blockchains, about 12,000 wallets, and more than 40,000 transactions. The firm described the activity as highly automated.
According to the update, about $2.85 billion of the stolen assets has been frozen or seized, equal to 44% of the total. Another roughly $3.24 billion remains in addresses linked to the theft.
Elliptic said Tron has been the main route for moving the funds. The attacker split the assets across about 7,700 addresses and then used cross-chain bridges to move funds to Ethereum and other networks. Starting on Nov. 1, the attacker also used CoinJoin for the first time, processing about 28 BTC. Elliptic added that about $16 million in stolen funds was sent to addresses linked to proceeds from the earlier Bitget hack.
BitMine adds 8,573 ETH in one week
BitMine (NYSE: BMNR) said it bought 8,573 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings to 6,060,506 ETH. The company said that amount represents about 4.9% of total ETH supply and puts it close to its goal of holding 5% of supply.
Of that total, about 5.227 million ETH has been staked. Based on the current yield, BitMine estimated annualized staking income at about $358 million.
As of Nov. 1, the company also held 216 BTC and about $498 million in cash and marketable securities. It said the total value of its crypto assets, cash, and other investments was about $14.5 billion.
Strategy buys 811 BTC and repurchases preferred shares
In an 8-K filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 2, Strategy said it spent about $65.5 million to acquire 811 BTC between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1, at an average purchase price of about $80,846 per bitcoin.
As of Nov. 1, Strategy held 849,327 BTC in total. Its cumulative purchase cost stood at about $64.08 billion, with an average holding cost of about $75,451 per bitcoin.
During the same period, the company raised net proceeds of $164 million by selling about 1.1786 million shares of MSTR common stock. Of that amount, $65.5 million was used to buy BTC, while $98.5 million was allocated to a U.S. dollar cash account.
Strategy also spent about $208.2 million to repurchase 2.092 million shares of STRC preferred stock.
ZachXBT flags suspected theft of more than $106 million from an EU entity
ZachXBT issued a security alert saying an EU entity may have had more than $106 million stolen on Nov. 1 from accounts at multiple centralized exchanges. The funds were withdrawn in USDC and USDT.
Over the past 24 hours, the suspected attacker has continued swapping USDC into ETH, moving funds through instant exchange services including WellWallet and Kyrrex, converting assets into XMR through Wagyu, and shifting funds across multiple blockchains.
The identity of the victim institution and the specific cause of the incident have not been disclosed.
QCP says BTC fell as low as $76,141 after the Binance attack
QCP Capital said bitcoin fell to a low of $76,141 last Friday after Binance suffered an attack of about $6.3 billion. It added that BTC was down 7.3% for October.
According to QCP, Binance has restored withdrawals on 15 networks, while net outflows reached about $3.64 billion, equal to about 2.1% of platform assets. Spot bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $643 million last Friday, and cumulative net outflows for October were about $516 million.
QCP said near-term support for BTC sits in the $76,000 to $76,600 range, while resistance is in the $79,500 to $80,500 range. It said this week’s focus includes the U.S. midterm elections, Binance’s proof of reserves, and nonfarm payrolls data.
China’s top procuratorate releases two cases involving virtual currency settlements
China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate released two representative cases involving the use of virtual currency to settle proceeds or payments tied to the illegal trade of citizens’ personal information.
In one case, 11 people including Wang purchased and resold citizens’ personal information from overseas sources and used virtual currency to pay upstream overseas sellers. The amount involved exceeded 1.98 million yuan, and all were sentenced for infringing citizens’ personal information.
In the other case, Lin Moufeng and others illegally obtained personal information through fake recruitment and sold more than 870,000 records overseas. The illegal proceeds were settled in virtual currency, and the amount involved exceeded 7.46 million yuan. Lin and 21 others were sentenced for crimes including infringing citizens’ personal information and assisting information network criminal activity.
