© Free Press Journal This is the third hack of the crypto company since June of this year.Cryptocurrencies are said to be cryptographically secure because they are recorded in online ledgers called blockchains where transactions cannot be duplicated. But apart from the volatility and decline of cryptocurrencies, fake exchanges as well as other scams also put investors at risk of scams. Binance gained more users in India as downloads surged to 4,300 in August after the cryptocurrency tax cut trading volume on Indian exchanges by 90 percent.
But it seems that many Indians who switched from Indian exchanges to the exchange founded by Chinese Canadian Changpeng Zhao, lost their investments after Binance was attacked by hackers. A hacker stole $100 million from a leading cryptocurrency trading platform and forced a trading halt. Despite the CEO's assurances that the situation is under control, the Binance platform has closed vulnerable parts of its system and the blockchain will now have a new governance structure.
Crypto hackers are still a formidable threat
It's the third such hack in four months, after Nomad Exchange lost $200 million in a cyber attack in June, and Harmony had $100 million stolen in August. CNBC also reported that Binance's losses could be even higher, bringing the potential loss to $570 million.
Recently, Binance gained the lion's share of 10 million crypto enthusiasts in India after the government imposed a 1% tax on crypto trading in the country. Indian investors have already lost Rs 1,000 crore to cryptocurrency scams this year and it is still unclear how the Binance hack hit them.
Fraud and hacking undermine the secure crypto image
In 2021, there were 251 cryptocurrency hacks in the blockchain world that led to the theft of $3.2 billion, and while the frequency of such incidents has decreased, the amount per theft is still high. The collapse of Terra stablecoin earlier this year wiped out $40 billion in investor wealth, leading to an arrest warrant in South Korea for its founder Do Kwon.
The Reserve Bank of India has also warned of the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies that have no underlying assets and has consistently called for them to be banned in India.
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