{"text":[[{"start":10.12,"text":"Binance has “temporarily suspended” all deposits and withdrawals as the world’s biggest crypto exchange appeared to have been the victim of one of the biggest security breaches across the digital asset industry."}],[{"start":21.44,"text":"“The estimated total impact sits at around $6.3B. We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with $3 billion frozen on-chain so far,” Binance said in a statement late on Thursday."}],[{"start":34.52,"text":"“Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak,” it added."}],[{"start":51.6,"text":"The company had earlier said on X that all deposits and withdrawals were “temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement”."}],[{"start":61.96,"text":"Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, had told customers earlier in the evening that their “funds are safe!” after an apparent “hack on Binance”, the crypto exchange he founded in 2017 which has grown to hold about $140bn of digital assets."}],[{"start":76.16,"text":"Paolo Ardoino, chief executive of Tether, said his company had frozen about $1.547bn of USDT, its $180bn dollar-linked stablecoin. Jeremy Allaire, head of Circle, the second-biggest stablecoin, said $800mn of its coin had been frozen amid “reports of a potential exploit” at Binance."}],[{"start":76.66,"text":"Bitcoin fell 3.2 per cent to $78,623. BNB, the native token of the blockchain developed by Binance, dropped 7.5 per cent."}],[{"start":108.08,"text":"“Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe,” Binance said on X."}],[{"start":117.08,"text":"Zhao gave up management of the exchange in 2023 as part of a deal with US authorities. He pleaded guilty to criminal charges relating to inadequate money laundering controls, and was pardoned last year by US President Donald Trump."}],[{"start":129.92,"text":"The broader crypto market has struggled to gain momentum this year after a sharp sell-off in late 2025 wiped more than $1tn from the combined capitalisation of about 18,000 digital tokens."}],[{"start":142.6,"text":"Hackers have repeatedly targeted crypto exchanges in recent years, in some cases making off with hundreds of millions of dollars."}],[{"start":149.56,"text":"In April, hackers stole $280mn from the coffers of unregulated crypto exchange Drift, the largest so-called perpetual futures exchange on the Solana blockchain."}],[{"start":160.96,"text":"Last year, North Korean hackers stole $1.5bn of cryptocurrency in an attack on exchange Bybit. In total, the country’s hackers stole $2.02bn in cryptocurrency in 2025, a 50 per cent increase from the prior year, according to data from Chainalysis."}],[{"start":179.6,"text":"Thursday’s attack on Binance came hours after Polymarket — another platform wildly popular among young, risk-seeking traders — said it had temporarily halted trading because one of its third-party providers had been “compromised”."}],[{"start":192.08,"text":"“Anyone who has been impacted will be made whole,” Polymarket said."}],[{"start":201.65,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1793329157_6836.mp3"}