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$GRVT Bitcoin dropped below $79,000 on Thursday as reports of a suspected multibillion-dollar hack at Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, rippled through markets. The selloff followed reports of heavy outflows from Binance-linked wallets. Some social media reports cited suspicious outflows of up to $5.8 billion, citing onchain data that shows about $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to an unlabeled wallet. Conor Grogan, a senior director at Coinbase, put the figure at $5.8 billion. Stablecoin issuers moved to freeze funds. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than 1.567 billion USDT. Circle froze about $823 million in USDC, according to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who remains a shareholder. Combined freezes range from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion depending on reports. “Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority,” Ardoino said. Binance has made no official confirmation of a breach. Co-founder Yi He wrote on X that the company is aware of reports of a potential security issue and that its security teams are reviewing all relevant information. “We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating…our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information. Users should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.” Zhao wrote that, in his view, the exchange appears to have been hacked, and he expects all user funds to be covered. “I don’t manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered,” Zhao posted. Blockchain researcher Spreek flagged the activity, which reportedly included a transfer through a contract call allegedly funded by Tornado Cash. Blockaid said it is investigating $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance hot wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche. If confirmed, the incident would be the largest crypto theft on record, surpassing the February 2025 Bybit hack of roughly $1.5 billion. Aave reportedly froze lending markets to block the suspected attacker from borrowing. Binance.US said the incident does not affect its platform. Figures remain fluid. One estimate puts the realized loss near 0.7% of Binance customer assets, and other reports continue to revise totals. Neither Binance nor law enforcement has released a formal account of the cause. Crypto exchange Bybit was not affected. They tweeted that their “systems are operating normally, trading and withdrawals remain available, and user assets remain secure.” Bitcoin price drops under $79,000 after Binance hack jitters Bitcoin is trading at $78,800, down 2.89% (about $2,350) over the past 24 hours. The price hit a 24-hour high of $81,890 around midday before sliding sharply after 4 p.m. ET, when it fell to a low of $78,177.37, after rumors of the hack circulated. Trading volume over the period was about $26.14 billion, and bitcoin’s market cap stands at roughly $1.58 trillion. This post Bitcoin Price Slides Below $79,000 as Binance Loses $5.8 Billion in Massive Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

THE NORTH KOREA-LINKED BINANCE ATTACKER HAS SOLD $158.25M IN STOLEN ALTCOINS FOR 70,480 $ETH. SOLD: $UNI , $$ENA , $$PEPE , LINK, AAVE, ONDO & WLD. FROZEN: $1.77B USDT, $823M USDC & $74.56M ARB. + REMAINING: Around $23M in altcoins. TOTAL HOLDINGS: 495,724 ETH: $1.09B 18,270 BTC: $1.41B 682.9M TRX: $242.59M 970,545 SOL: $92.15M The market is still watching closely.

$GRVT Blockchain analytics firm Arkham estimates that attackers took $6.01 billion from Binance hot wallets across nine chains on Oct. 29, with about $2.9 billion in assets still movable despite billions in freezes. In its Oct. 30 assessment, Arkham put frozen assets at $2.80 billion. Binance separately estimated the incident’s total impact at around $6.3 billion and said approximately $3 billion had been frozen. The exchange has not endorsed Arkham’s exact tally. For customers, Binance’s commitment is to cover all losses using its SAFU fund and company funds. “User funds are safe,” the exchange said. Its security update said deposits and withdrawals were temporarily suspended while checks continued, leaving customers unable to withdraw even as the exchange promised to absorb the losses. Ethereum Accounts for the Largest Share Arkham’s chain-by-chain breakdown attributed $3.739 billion to Ethereum, including $1.875 billion in $USDT, $823 million in $USDC and 197,540 $ETH valued at $457.33 million. Bitcoin accounted for another 18,270.2 $BTC, valued at $1.467 billion. The firm counted $628.09 million on Tron, comprising 612.73 million $USDT and 46.39 million $TRX; $95.90 million on Solana; and a combined $77.70 million across Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon, Optimism and Base. Those dollar values are Arkham’s estimates, rather than an exchange-confirmed accounting of losses. An Ethereum transaction record supports a major part of that account: at 4:24 p.m. ET on Oct. 29, a transaction moved about 167,464 $ETH and 63 ERC-20 tokens from a wallet Etherscan labels Binance 14 to an address it labels Binance Hot Wallet Exploiter 2. The token transfers included approximately 1.615 billion $USDT. That transaction establishes a large individual outflow, not the full nine-chain loss estimate. Arkham placed the wider drain between 4:10 p.m. and 7:05 p.m. ET on Oct. 29. Freezes Leave Billions Beyond Issuers’ Reach Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on Oct. 29 that the issuer had frozen more than 1.567 billion $USDT related to a potential Binance hack. Arkham’s later freeze breakdown counted $1.768 billion in $USDT across Ethereum, Tron and Avalanche, alongside $824.56 million in $USDC frozen by Circle and other immobilized tokens. Arkham said $2.9 billion in $ETH, $BTC, $TRX, SOL and altcoins remained movable. Its frozen and movable figures are separate estimates, not a reconciliation of the original $6.01 billion taken. Binance’s preliminary explanation points to an operational breach: the exchange said a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop may have allowed an attacker into a service container to submit unauthorized withdrawals. It said it had found no evidence of a wallet private-key leak and had revoked the affected address authorization. Binance said it would publish a detailed technical post-mortem once the investigation was complete and an updated Proof of Reserves after remediation.

$GRVT Dubai-based blockchain startup Utexo says it will relaunch Tether’s USDT stablecoin on Bitcoin after a three-year gap, using the RGB protocol to keep transaction details off the public blockchain. The company is targeting a public rollout on Nov. 28, with planned Lightning Network support in Q1 2027. The pitch is straightforward: settle on Bitcoin for security, move using Lightning for speed, and use RGB for transaction confidentiality. Whether that message will resonate—given that more than $300 billion in stablecoins are already circulating across major networks such as Ethereum and Tron—will likely depend on how easily existing market participants can move USDT to Bitcoin and whether the confidentiality and payment performance improvements outweigh the current ecosystem advantages elsewhere. Key takeaways Utexo plans to bring USDT back to Bitcoin via RGB, with a public launch scheduled for Nov. 28. Lightning Network integration is slated for Q1 2027, aiming to improve payment latency and throughput for USDT transfers. RGB is positioned as a Bitcoin-native approach that keeps asset-transfer data off-chain while anchoring cryptographic commitments to Bitcoin. Utexo’s USDT Mint for moving liquidity onto Bitcoin runs through a cross-network locking and redemption process that introduces bridge-style trust and security considerations. Utexo expects demand to come primarily from payments and simpler financial workflows, not from replicating Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem on Bitcoin. From USDT on Bitcoin to a pause—and now a comeback This is not the first time USDT has lived on Bitcoin. Tether’s stablecoin began on Bitcoin in 2014 through the Omni protocol, but issuance on that route was halted in August 2023, with Tether attributing the decision to declining usage. In August 2025, Tether later announced plans to launch USDT on RGB, implying a new path for native Bitcoin stablecoin support. That timeline shifted: Utexo raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Tether in March, and the new company says it will use Tether’s USDT0 protocol to launch the Bitcoin version of the stablecoin. Utexo’s chief executive Viktor Ihnatiuk, speaking in an interview with Magazine, framed the “why now” in terms of two changes: speed and privacy. The company argues that settlement on Bitcoin can provide security, while RGB keeps transaction details off-chain—constraints that, according to Ihnatiuk, matter for real-world businesses that prefer not to expose counterparties and balances publicly. “You can actually achieve any speed you want to achieve,” Ihnatiuk said, adding that Lightning is the core technology for scaling payments on Bitcoin. What RGB is trying to solve on Bitcoin RGB has been in development since 2016 and is designed to enable users to issue and transfer digital assets using contracts tied to Bitcoin without recording every transfer detail on the public blockchain. Instead of asking Bitcoin to behave like a smart-contract platform for each transaction, RGB has parties validate asset transfers themselves, while cryptographic commitments anchored to Bitcoin are used to help secure the system. In other words, Utexo’s model is not framed as a sidechain or a rollup that recreates a separate execution environment. The company describes RGB as a Bitcoin-native protocol, with privacy as a core design goal. Utexo also points to compatibility with Lightning for payment-channel transfers. RGB’s planned use with Lightning means USDT movements can be routed through payment channels without requiring every transfer to become a base-layer Bitcoin transaction. Ihnatiuk argues this can change the practical expectations for Bitcoin-based payments, claiming Lightning can support payment dynamics in the range of “100 milliseconds,” while also noting that broader scaling limitations are often more about user and developer understanding than the underlying capability. Still, the market question remains: can this offer a compelling alternative to existing stablecoin infrastructure—especially networks where USDT can already leverage smart-contract composability and established DeFi liquidity? Early access and the “bridge” problem: USDT0 to Bitcoin Before the public launch, Utexo opened early access to its USDT Mint product on Oct. 22. The program targets “verified professional operators” such as exchanges, wallets, and market makers, offering them a way to test minting, confidential transfers, and redemption on Bitcoin’s Signet test network. Utexo says the sandbox is designed to let operators validate transaction flows and complete integrations ahead of the end-of-November rollout. Operationally, however, moving existing USDT onto Bitcoin via Utexo Mint includes an additional step beyond RGB and Bitcoin itself. According to Utexo’s documentation, the service locks USDT0 on Arbitrum before minting an equivalent amount of USDT on Bitcoin. To redeem, users burn the RGB asset on Bitcoin and trigger the release of corresponding funds on the source network. This means Mint’s security and reliability depend not only on Bitcoin and RGB, but also on the mechanisms that connect the Arbitrum-denominated locked funds with the Bitcoin-side asset. Utexo acknowledges in its design context that bridge architecture can increase risk exposure, since bridges have historically been attractive targets for attackers. Utexo says Mint has been audited by Oxorio, though it does not make the full audit report publicly available. Partners, use cases, and what “success” would look like For distribution, Utexo says it has selected UniSat as a launch partner and plans for support in UniSat’s wallet for USDT transfers and swaps. The company also states it is working with 12 over-the-counter network partners, with another 40 in its pipeline. On the demand side, Ihnatiuk described the company’s focus as Bitcoin-native trading and lending opportunities, but not an attempt to recreate Ethereum’s decentralized finance stack. He said Bitcoin was “always built for payments,” not for DeFi, and implied the most realistic adoption path is likely to center on payment rails and simpler financial arrangements such as escrow-based exchanges. Another potential use case Utexo highlighted involves Bitcoin miners. The argument is that miners could swap BTC for USDT directly on Bitcoin rather than moving assets to centralized venues, which could reduce exposure to custodial risk and make hedging strategies easier to automate. Utexo’s stated ambitions for early adoption are high. In the interview, Ihnatiuk set targets for the first 12 months, saying he would like to reach at least $1 billion USDT on the Bitcoin network, with initial and median goals of $10 billion and $5 billion, respectively. The company also believes success on Bitcoin could benefit miners through higher fee revenue, reasoning that if USDT activity returns to Bitcoin settlement, a larger share of transaction demand would flow through Bitcoin’s fee market. Why investors should watch the rollout closely Utexo’s return plan is built on a familiar stablecoin thesis—settle on Bitcoin, distribute efficiently, and add confidentiality—but the real test will be execution: operator onboarding for Mint, the safety and reliability of the cross-network locking-and-redemption design, and whether Lightning-linked performance plus RGB privacy translate into sustained usage versus competing stablecoin rails. With a public launch set for Nov. 28 and Lightning support targeted for Q1 2027, market participants will likely look for evidence that liquidity and partners can scale quickly enough to make Bitcoin a practical USDT home this time. This article was originally published as Private Fast USDT Set for Bitcoin, Testing Against Ethereum and Tron on Crypto Breaking News – your trusted source for crypto news, Bitcoin news, and blockchain updates.