Binance's Teng Urges Industry to Learn From $6.3 Billion Hack as New Features Draw Scrutiny

Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance, argues that the sector has to take lessons from the $6.3 billion Binance hack. The attackers mixed a novel Ethereum (ETH) capability with fake recruiters and AI methods, which leaves open how much risk new crypto tools carry.

Even so, one researcher working on Ethereum maintains that the feature at the centre of it is not itself faulty. The exposure for ETH held on exchanges may come from the signing systems custodians use, not from the upgrade.

What Lessons Does Teng Say the Industry Should Draw From the Binance Hack?

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Teng said Binance had released a detailed report so that the industry could learn from it. He pointed to the FBI's attribution of the attack to North Korea and to a campaign assembled over several months.

According to Teng, the operation opened in June with a counterfeit developer tool, then moved on to sham recruiter interviews in September. From there the attackers worked through in-house AI tools until they reached the system that authorised wallet transactions.

He said that on October 29 they took advantage of a recently introduced Ethereum feature, which allowed funds to keep moving after Binance had halted withdrawals. On Ethereum, a single wallet lost roughly 167,464 ETH as well as $1.6 billion in Tether (USDT).

Researchers name the feature EIP-7702, an Ethereum upgrade dating from May 2025 that allows ordinary wallets to borrow smart-contract code, Gizmodo reported.

Blockaid, a blockchain security company, determined that the attacker packed 50 signed authorisations into a single transaction. According to a detailed account of how the hack happened, Binance cleared the delegation close to four hours afterwards.

Does New Technology Add Risk, or Simply Shift It?

Derek Chiang, a researcher at Ethlabs, contended that EIP-7702 is not broken, even if it let the theft be carried out faster and more efficiently. Holders who use wallets supporting the feature, MetaMask among them, have no reason to panic, he added.

AI tools also appeared in Teng's description, figuring both as a technique used by the attackers and as the internal route into the signing system.

Binance says it has restored 98% of the affected assets, rebuilt the wallet system, swapped out devices and revoked linked credentials. The exchange adds that it is working with law enforcement and industry partners to trace and freeze the stolen funds.

Should the independent review Teng promised confirm that a signer was compromised, the risk lies with exchange custody design rather than with new features alone. A defect in a feature itself would alter that conclusion.