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Binance said it will absorb customer losses tied to an Oct. 29 security incident that affected approximately $6.3 billion, with partners freezing roughly $3 billion in assets, according to a weekly roundup from crypto.news. The exchange said the SAFU fund and company resources would back the reimbursement, and that its preliminary investigation pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that may have enabled unauthorized withdrawals.
Binance also said it found no evidence that wallet private keys leaked. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group, an assessment Binance had not confirmed, crypto.news reported.
Also readXRP Withdrawals Hit 55.75% on Binance as Whale Spread Widens
Key facts
- Binance reported a breach on Oct. 29 affecting roughly $6.3 billion, with about $3 billion in assets frozen by partners.
- The Federal Reserve held its benchmark range at 3.75%–4.00% on Oct. 28 in a 10–2 vote, with Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack dissenting in favor of another 25-basis-point hike.
- CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said the agency was developing voluntary federal registration for crypto exchanges under existing powers, with comments due Dec. 14.
- Coinbase posted third-quarter revenue of $1.22 billion, down 35% year over year, and $719 million in net income, including $715 million in unrealized cryptocurrency investment gains.
- Tether reported $1.5 billion in third-quarter net operating profit and $7.95 billion in excess reserves, up from about $4.1 billion at the end of June.
Fed pause follows September increase
Policymakers described growth as strong and inflation as elevated when they left rates unchanged. The pause came after a quarter-point increase in September. Bitcoin traded near $80,800 around the time of the announcement, crypto.news reported.
The decision was not unanimous: Cook and Hammack both preferred to tighten further. That split matters for crypto markets, which had spent much of the year trading against expectations about how fast borrowing costs would fall.
Also readBinance-Linked Wallets Drained of Up to $5.9 Billion in Suspected Hack
CFTC opens a consultation, not a finished rulebook
Selig’s plan covers leveraged, margined or financed retail crypto transactions, with safeguards around token listings, customer funds and conflicts of interest. The advance notice is meant to gather feedback before any potential rulemaking, and it does not create a completed registration framework. Congress’s market-structure legislation remained unfinished, leaving the agency to work within its existing authority.
Corporate results and market plumbing move in parallel
Coinbase’s headline profit was driven mainly by paper gains on its crypto holdings, while adjusted net income came in at $78 million. The company said prediction markets passed $200 million in annualized revenue and that average USDC holdings hit a record $22 billion.
Tether’s reserve cushion grew to $7.95 billion, against $191.45 billion in reserve assets and $183.50 billion in liabilities. Direct and indirect U.S. Treasury bill holdings totaled $132.4 billion.
Elsewhere, DTCC launched a tokenization service for securities held in DTC custody, with 20 institutions signing access agreements, including JPMorgan, Citi and Fidelity Investments; Stellar integration is expected in the first half of 2027. NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange partnered with trade[XYZ] on a planned U.S. perpetual futures venue on Hyperliquid, subject to CFTC approval with no launch date set.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $440.8 million across Oct. 26–29, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $410.6 million, according to Farside Investors. Thursday’s net inflows slowed to $17.2 million, and the four-session total excludes Friday’s trading response to the Binance breach.
On the exchange side, CoinDCX confirmed a 15.99 million USDT wallet loss tied to old infrastructure after initially rejecting theft reports, saying it absorbed the loss and that customer balances were unaffected. HTX agreed to court undertakings running until Oct. 21, 2031 in its UK financial promotions case with the FCA without admitting wrongdoing.
Why it matters
The Binance incident is the loudest reminder this year that exchange security failures land on customers first, and that recovery now depends heavily on how much capital a platform has set aside. The Fed’s decision keeps pressure on risk assets without adding a new headwind, while the CFTC’s consultation sets the terms of a debate over how much federal oversight exchanges will face if lawmakers stay deadlocked. Together, the week’s events shift attention from token prices toward custody, reserves and rules.
What to watch
The CFTC comment window closes Dec. 14, and it will show how much of the industry wants federal registration. Binance’s investigation and any confirmed attribution of the attack are the other threads to follow.
This article is not financial advice. Crypto markets are volatile and uncertain, and prices can change quickly.
Source: crypto.news
