Was the Binance Smart Chain hacked? In the following article, you'll find Changpeng Zhao's exact words about the incident. Everybody else's opinions, though, are about the halting of the chain. Most people are unaware of what Bitcoinist told you a year ago: the Binance Smart Chain is centralized and advertised as such. It's not a secret. It's that blockchain's main characteristic.
In any case, this story is fresh. There are still a lot of questions about this afternoon's event. However, Changpeng Zhao has been open about the whole situation and informed the public through Twitter. Let's start there and then get to the praise and criticism. Once again, we have to divide this into altcoiners and bitcoiners. It's the most effective way of presenting the frequently-contrasting opinions.
An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022
Full transparency, I was asleep (yes, I sleep). By the time I was woken up at 3AM, the community of validators had already paused. I just did the tweeting. The community & team did all the work. https://t.co/m4PQ3tMIZB
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) October 7, 2022
The current impact estimate is around $100m USD equvilent, about a quarter of the last BNB burn.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) October 7, 2022
So, there was an exploit but the situation was dealt with. The company recently twitted "Binance Smart Chain is back online. We have now resumed Binance Smart Chain deposits and withdrawals on Binance." The hit the company took wasn't as bad as some people thought at the beginning. Was it because they quickly halted the whole Binance Smart Chain? Maybe, but that's what the criticism that the company received is about. About their power to just stop the chain.
Well get to that, let's start with... actually, it's mostly criticism.
Critics will focus on how BSC is centralized around @cz_binance. Want full decentralization?! Buy #bitcoin. Hodl it. Nothing else you can do with it. Want to actually use dapps?! Use other blockchains. Everything has up- and downsides! Pick and choose!!
— Dr. Julian Hosp (@julianhosp) October 7, 2022
Call me crazy but I prefer chains that don't get paused
— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) October 6, 2022
down but not out pic.twitter.com/cLKuzDW2nq
— backbooked (@backbooked) October 6, 2022
— Cobie (@cobie) October 6, 2022
Need a chain halt? Okey dokey!https://t.co/HPN7OJKIEw pic.twitter.com/tylPhR8kVQ
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 6, 2022
Absolute decentralization theatre.
Decentralization and networkwide on-demand shutdown literally cannot be more polar opposites of each other.
Ethereum DAO, Solana, Ronin Bridge, BSC. It won't stop. When will people wake up? https://t.co/2uEXSILeEw
— Hugo Nguyen (@hugohanoi) October 7, 2022
UPDATE: The attackers only got 10-15% out before things started getting frozen so imo low chance of a rollback.
Just your standard Defi hack, everyone carry on, nothing to see here https://t.co/Ar5YqZP3eD
— NickH (@hash_bender) October 7, 2022
And that's what the Twitterati wrote about the Binance Smart Chain halt.