Binance Hack Laundering: 2,300 BTC Swapped, Elliptic Says
Binance hack laundering is now moving into bitcoin. Elliptic says about 2,300 BTC, worth $175 million, now sits in new addresses after being converted from other stolen coins. Bitcoin.com News reported the same finding on November 7.
What Elliptic found
The theft happened on October 29. Elliptic puts it at $6.43 billion across 11 blockchains, while Binance has used a figure of about $6.3 billion. The two numbers measure slightly different things, so we cite both.
Since then, the thief has swapped other coins into bitcoin. Elliptic names SOL, XRP, Tron and ETH as the sources. The pile grew from about 470 BTC on November 4 to about 1,650 BTC on November 6, and then to about 2,300 BTC. In total, Elliptic counts more than 20,000 wallets, 16 blockchains, at least 36 services and at least 65,000 transactions. It calls the laundering “clearly automated.”
What has not moved
The big holdings are still sitting. Elliptic says the 18,270 stolen BTC were split across 19 addresses on October 29 and have not moved since. Likewise, the nine largest ETH addresses, which hold 89% of the attacker’s ETH, have been still since October 30. Elliptic also says a “negligible amount” has likely been cashed out. So far, most activity is conversion, not cash-out.
Who is behind it? The FBI attributed the theft to North Korea-linked TraderTraitor on October 31, per Elliptic. Elliptic says the unmoved funds are “very likely still held by North Korea.” However, it is more careful about the funds already moving, which it says may not be. In short, attribution is firm for the theft and softer for the laundering.
Miner math: why a hack this size matters to your margin
Here is the live maths on November 7. Bitcoin is $75,753 and the network is 1006 EH/s, so hashprice is about $34.14 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.66 | -$3.00 | -$6.12 | 4.2c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.75 | -$1.15 | -$3.69 | 6.2c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.20 | -$0.97 | -$3.86 | 6.7c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.78 | $1.25 | -$2.12 | 9.5c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If a forced sale or panic pushes bitcoin down 5%: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro falls from 6.2 to 5.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.15 to -$1.35.
What we would watch as miners
Here is the risk. A thief holding 18,000-plus BTC is a large overhang on the market, and the Binance hack already shook prices. We cannot say what will happen to those coins. Still, the table above shows how a 5% price move changes break-even power. Therefore, we would point payouts at our own wallet and keep only trading balances at any exchange.
If your machines struggle at today’s price, see our we buy used miners page. Otherwise, browse all miners or read the mining economics guides.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.
How this story was made: drafted with the help of AI tools from public sources, then edited by Nick Squires. See our editorial policy. Spot an error? Email ns@ingmining.com.