Industry Insider: Bitcoin Stolen in Binance Hack Is Most Likely Unrecoverable

October 30 — According to Bloomberg, Bobby Lee, founder of digital asset hardware wallet company Ballet, said the bitcoin stolen in the Binance hack is most likely unrecoverable. "That bitcoin is gone, it's in the hackers' hands," Lee said in a Bloomberg Television interview. He said only stablecoins have a realistic chance of recovery, but freezing is not the same as recovery; Binance still needs to work with law enforcement on the investigation and formally apply to claim the frozen assets.

Lee also said bitcoin saw no notable selling during Friday's Asian trading session, falling less than 1% to $78,269 as of 13:03 Hong Kong time. He believes the market has matured considerably: the crypto market is now worth trillions of dollars, so losing $1 billion, $2 billion or $5 billion is not the end of the world. Previously, Binance estimated that the incident affected about $6.3 billion in assets, has suspended all deposits and withdrawals and pledged to bear the losses; about $3 billion in assets are currently frozen.