Binance’s Bitcoin Heist Just Put Coinbase’s Corporate Stack in the Rearview

Bitcoin stolen in Binance’s $6.3 billion hack held more value than Coinbase’s corporate Bitcoin reserves, with blockchain analytics firm Bitquery tracing 18,270 Bitcoin (BTC), worth roughly $1.4 billion, to 19 addresses linked to the attackers. Coinbase reported holding 17,954 BTC for investment and 117 BTC for operations as of Sept. 30, a combined 18,071 BTC, placing the Binance hackers’ balance 199 BTC higher. Coinbase’s holdings do not include BTC held for customers, and BitcoinTreasuries.net ranks the exchange eighth among publicly traded companies by Bitcoin holdings based on its 17,954 BTC investment balance.

Binance confirmed Friday that it had suffered a $6.3 billion hack, said about $3 billion in stolen assets had been frozen and pledged to cover all losses. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking group. According to Bitquery, 17 of the attackers’ Bitcoin addresses held 1,000 BTC each, while the remaining coins sat in two other wallets. The BTC was taken from Binance hot wallets during a breach affecting nine blockchains in under four hours on Thursday. Binance said investigators had uncovered additional breach points after initially suspecting a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer.

Bitquery also traced 508,621 Ether (ETH) to the attackers as of the same Friday snapshot, exceeding the 495,362 ETH that BitcoinTreasuries.net attributes to The Ether Machine, which ranks third on its list of corporate Ether holders. The attackers initially stole 200,630 ETH and accumulated the remainder by swapping stolen stablecoins and other tokens, Bitquery added.