Record-Breaking 8 Trillion Won Incident Hackers Are Hoarding Ether...The Binance Hacking Incident Log
The 48 hours following the Binance hack have been recorded as an incident log from the on-chain ledger itself. The market rumors of "ether sell-off crash theory" and "ETF liquidation theory" differ from the ledger. The hacker did not dump ether; rather, he is hoarding it while accepting losses.
◇ October 30 (Friday) Early Morning, Right After Theft—The Thief's Ledger
The composition of the $6.3 billion stolen at 5:20 a.m. (Korea time) differed from conventional wisdom. According to Elliptic's tally, the $3.8 billion stolen from the Ethereum chain was a bundle of 186 types of tokens, with the largest items being not ether but stablecoins: Tether (USDT) $1.9 billion and USD Coin (USDC) $823 million. From immediately after the theft, the hacker began dumping roughly 150 types of altcoins on decentralized exchanges (DEX) and converting them to ether.
◇ October 30 Morning—The Chase of Freezes
The defense was swift. Tether froze $1.57 billion, and Binance froze its own issued staking token wBETH, cutting off one escape route. Combined with Circle (USDC), the amount of frozen funds reached $2.8 billion to $3 billion. In Seoul, Upbit issued a notice at 7:46 a.m. warning of and restricting withdrawals to Binance, followed by Bithumb and Coinone. The weakness of stablecoins—that the issuer can freeze wallets—became a tracker's weapon this time.
◇ October 30 Afternoon—Losing Money in Exchange
Then the hacker's response was recorded on the ledger. $434 million worth of USDT was exchanged for 160,451 ether on Uniswap and 1inch at terms accepting 12-26% losses compared to market price. USDT was pledged as collateral to the lending protocol Aave, and 19,762 ether was borrowed. AVAX quantities were bridged to become 7,242 ether. The objective was singular: ether and bitcoin cannot be frozen by anyone. Contrary to the crash theory, this movement was actually ether "buying" demand. The ether price bottomed out in the late $2,100s.
◇ October 30 Night—The Relentless Machine
What moved overnight was the Tron chain. 638 million TRX was fragmented into 546 automated transfers with a median transfer interval of 96 seconds. Elliptic recorded that this mechanical washing "did not stop even at night." Through this route, $38 million to $67 million evaded the tracking network. However, centralized exchange deposits: 0. Cashing out has not yet begun.
◇ October 31 Afternoon—Market Numbers
Ether recovered to the $2,240 level. A sharp decline, yes, but "crash crisis" is an exaggeration. Total market futures liquidations exceeded $1.5 billion, with ether alone $360 million in a day (85% bullish bets). The reality behind "ETF liquidation theory" was net outflows from U.S. spot ether ETFs: $155.7 million on October 30 alone, five consecutive days, October cumulative approximately $1.1 billion—the largest of the year. However, most of this outflow was a trend that predated the hack, making it difficult to attribute it as a cause. There was also no feared price deviation in staking tokens (stETH) (discount rate 0.05%).
◇ October 31 Evening—Current Balance and Investigation
The hacker's "unfreezable" assets total approximately $3.2 billion, with 420,000-520,000 ether (count varies by analyst) and 18,270 bitcoin sleeping across 19 addresses. CEO Richard Teng revealed that this attack was "not the work of a single individual," and among the attack tools, self-destruct mechanisms for covering tracks were confirmed. Layer 2 chains Arbitrum and Optimism fully recovered their respective chain theft amounts through governance authority. South Korean financial authorities have not yet issued an official position.
◇ Next Record—November 1-2
Binance is sequentially restoring services with the aim of fully reopening withdrawals by November 1 (Korea time), and will disclose its Proof of Reserves (PoR) on November 2. And the longest game remains. It took 20 minutes to steal, but it will take years to spend. As global analysis firms and investigative agencies watch, the long battle of washing 8 trillion won is now only on page one.