President Donald Trump said on Friday he is looking into the Binance hack, a $6.3 billion hack. Lawmakers, regulators and industry groups are using the breach to push for federal crypto rules, and they disagree on whether the stalled Clarity Act would have helped.
President Donald Trump said he was looking into the hack of Binance during a press conference on Friday afternoon. He added that Binance has said it is ensuring customers get their funds back.
Calls are growing for legislation, and for firms like Binance to move onshore, following the $6.3 billion hack of the world's largest crypto exchange.
How the attack unfolded
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said the breach was caused in part by a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. That access let an attacker reach a service container used to submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Blockchain analytics firms like TRM Labs have attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a hacking unit in North Korea.
Regulators point to offshore exchanges
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig, speaking on CNBC, pointed to the fact that his agency does not federally regulate Binance as an issue. The CFTC proposed its federal crypto framework on Oct. 5, covering leveraged and margined retail crypto trading and a new registration category for exchanges offering those products.
Selig said the hack proves the agency's point. According to Selig, "these are unregulated offshore exchanges".
Clarity Act debate
The Clarity Act is broad crypto legislation to regulate exchanges, and the House passed it last year. The bill has since stalled in the Senate amid concerns over Trump's crypto wealth.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., one of the bill's negotiators, said on X that the act would have given crypto firms legal cover to freeze suspicious transactions the instant law enforcement calls. Amanda Fischer of Better Markets pushed back, saying the bill would have required stablecoin issuers to freeze per a court order. Solana Policy Institute General Counsel Patrick Wilson said that was wrong, arguing a section of the act protected issuers from private lawsuits over voluntary, temporary holds.
Industry presses Congress
On Friday, The Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone sent a letter to House and Senate leadership. It demands that Congress immediately pass a bill giving the CFTC authority over crypto exchanges and keeping customer funds separate from company funds in bankruptcy proceedings.
Rep. Tom Timmons, R-S.C., raised national security concerns, saying on X that America cannot allow rogue regimes to exploit digital assets to finance their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Source: The Block
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