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Binance criticized for suggesting to rollback lost Bitcoin

  • Binance lost about $40 million in Bitcoin after 7,000 BTC went missing.
  • Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin believes rolling back will be “huge and possibly fatal.”

After falling victim to a properly organized hack attack, Binance the largest crypto exchange platform by adjusted daily volume said that it was considering rolling back the lost BTC on Bitcoin network. As reported by FXStreet, Binance lost about $40 million in Bitcoin after 7,000 BTC went missing from the exchange. The company admitted to the attack on May 7 after hackers got access to API keys, two-factor authentication codes among other information.

In a statement following the attack, Binance said that the lost funds affected just about 2% of its entire holding in Bitcoin. Users were assured that their funds were safe with the exchange as most wallets were “secure and unharmed.” The company also issued an apology for not being proactive and promised to cover the loss using the company’s secure asset fund for users (SAFU).

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in an ask me anything (AMA) session on Periscope said that the attack was carefully organized by people who were “very patient.” CZ later said in a tweet that the exchange will not pursue the hackers and was considering rolling the lost funds on Bitcoin network.

However, the crypto community criticized the exchange saying that the conversation on rolling back the Bitcoin’s should have been left private. Moreover, people in the industry are now question the leadership of the exchange all together. Some are even comparing the attack to Ethereum’s DAO hack. The founder of Galaxy Digital Investments Michael Novogratz said a tweet:

 “I am shocked that @cz_binance even went there.  Talk of forking or reorganizing the blockchain is close to heresy.  When the ethereum community did it the project was like 5 months old. A baby.  Bitcoin now has $100bn market cap and is a legitimate store of wealth.”

The founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin had this to say about the rollback:

“Ethereum did a surgical irregular state change. We never even considered actually rolling back the chain to undo the hack; the collateral damage from that (reverting a day of *everyone's* transactions) would have been huge and possibly fatal.”

Author

John Isige

John Isige

FXStreet

John Isige is a seasoned cryptocurrency journalist and markets analyst committed to delivering high-quality, actionable insights tailored to traders, investors, and crypto enthusiasts. He enjoys deep dives into emerging Web3 tren

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