Defiant Binance CEO Insists ‘We Aren’t Short on Funds’ after $40 Million Hack
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, took to answering questions after the bitcoin exchange suffered a $40 million breach. | Source: REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
By CCN.com: Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says that the exchange is not hurting at all after the $40 million hack that reportedly took place earlier today, in which hackers managed to withdraw around 7000 BTC.
He encouraged anyone that wanted to make donations to make them instead to Binance Charity, during a live stream on Twitter, in which he addressed several questions beyond the 7000 BTC that were stolen by hackers.
CZ Turns It into General Q&A
Users took the opportunity to pose a ton of random questions about Binance. One might interest many readers: the fact that Binance is “working on a number of fiat on-ramps.”
CZ also said that smart contracts were not a first priority for the recently released Binance Chain. He said:
We have not, to be honest, thought too much about the governance model of Binance Chain.
Speaking of Binance Chain, he said that projects which are “already on Binance Chain” would have a better chance of being listed on Binance moving forward. The statement indicates that the exchange will give preference to such projects regardless of whether or not they have significant interest from the world at large. Any existing token project whose sole desire is to be listed on Binance only needs to use the nascent chain in order to find the express lane to the liquidity highway.
CZ said that Tether USD is only able to be withdrawn in the Omni (BTC) version at the present time. The Tron and ERC-20 version of Tether is not available for withdrawal on Binance.
Binance Chain Will Go Open Source When It Feels like It
The embattled CEO also said that “all the other exchanges would release a similar version of that chain” if the company were to make its blockchain public at the present time. While most blockchain projects are open source from the get-go, Binance Chain’s code is not currently publicly available. CZ says that he wants there to be some real traction on Binance Chain before open sourcing or worrying too much about other things. For major ERC-20 tokens, CZ says that the chain will probably “do some pegging,” meaning that Binance will offer a token relative to the value of major tokens.
Zhao also says that SegWit “is on the roadmap but is a lower priority,” claiming that Bitcoin is currently working as intended now, so there’s no rush to introduce SegWit or Lightning Network. Currently, the transactions sent from Binance are working just fine, he said.
Graciously, numerous users used the opportunity to express their gratitude to CZ for his commitment to the crypto community. CZ says the exchange is “trying to be as transparent as possible right now” and, earlier in the broadcast, pointed out that the Binance Charity efforts will continue to support any of their commitments – including his promise to help those being sued by Craig Wright.
At the end of the broadcast, CZ said that the hackers were able to “structure the withdrawal request in a way that did not violate any of our existing security policies.” He said the exchange would cover the loss and that it needed a week to make sure “the system is completely clean.”
