Binance Hacker Hunts for Exit Ramps as DeFi Exchanges Pause Markets — SkimNews
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- Binance was drained of at least $5.5 billion in a suspected hack, with security experts confirming the breach though the exchange has not explicitly acknowledged user fund exposure.
- Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle froze over $2 billion in USDT and USDC linked to attacker wallets, leveraging their centralized control to block further movement of the funds.
- Ripple froze approximately $200 million in RLUSD at Binance co-CEO Yi He’s confirmation, with senior VP Jack McDonald stating the company is actively freezing affected funds and coordinating with investigators.
- Uniswap processed tens of thousands of ETH in swaps from attacker-linked wallets, including batches of 20,940 ETH and 18,085 ETH, exploiting the decentralized exchange’s trustless, non-custodial infrastructure.
- Aave enabled the borrowing of 19,762 ETH against $60 million in USDT collateral from attacker wallets before freezing its V3 markets on Ethereum to prevent further exploitation.
- Kamino paused borrowing on its SOL/BTC markets as a precaution, confirming it is not directly affected but monitoring the situation in coordination with partners.
Why it matters: Decentralized protocols like Uniswap and Aave, designed to operate without central control, are now conduits for laundering hacked funds—making recovery impossible once stablecoins are swapped into ETH. With over $570 million now held in unmovable ETH wallets, the incident exposes a critical vulnerability: while centralized stablecoins can be frozen, the DeFi infrastructure built around them cannot, shifting risk to the very design principles underpinning the ecosystem.
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