Source publication: November 7, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. UTC+8. The account below reflects the reporting and time references in that article.
A reported hack at Binance left two UK cryptocurrency investors questioning the safety of exchange-held assets—even though both primarily used Coinbase. Their responses differed: one wanted to exit once his losses narrowed, while the other began spreading holdings across platforms.
The article, credited to Aaliyah Ahmed of The Times and translated into Chinese by Chopper of Foresight News, describes both the financial losses and the custody concerns behind those decisions.
The reported breach and the custody question
The source describes Binance as the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and says the attack occurred in the week preceding its publication. It initially puts the theft from exchange wallets at $6.3 billion, then gives a more precise figure of $6.34 billion. Of that amount, it reports that $2.85 billion had been frozen or intercepted by the platform. Those figures are presented as reported in the supplied article, not independently verified here.
According to the article, Binance attributed the intrusion to human error: an engineer inadvertently downloaded malware in June, and attackers subsequently used a fake interview to trick another employee into installing malicious software. The article says the FBI attributed the attack to a North Korean hacking group.
For the investors interviewed, the immediate concern was the security of the intermediaries holding their assets, rather than a reported compromise of their own accounts.
An XRP buyer prepares to leave
Max Daniels, a 33-year-old communications professional, invested £5,000 in XRP through Coinbase after seeing friends and relatives make substantial cryptocurrency gains the previous summer.
He initially invested £4,000 when XRP traded at about £1.60, then added £1,000 as the price rose. By the time of the report, the holding was worth less than £3,000.
Daniels, who had recently moved home, said he and his wife planned to sell everything if prices recovered enough to make the loss less painful. They were no longer expecting to break even, let alone profit.
Although he held no cryptocurrency on Binance, the reported breach deepened his doubts about digital-asset security. He began monitoring his investment more closely and changed his Coinbase price alerts so the couple could sell when the price reached their intended exit level.
His work brought him into contact with cryptocurrency clients, and he said he already understood the risks of bad actors and market manipulation. Nevertheless, the prospect of high returns and the surrounding market enthusiasm had drawn him in.
Daniels had allocated 60% of an inheritance to an S&P 500 index fund, 30% to XRP and the remainder to everyday expenses. According to the article, gains on the index fund roughly offset his cryptocurrency losses. He described himself as uncomfortable with high-risk speculation and expressed a belief that index funds rise over the long term; that was his view, not a guarantee of future performance.
Another investor spreads exchange exposure
Tom Stanley, a 35-year-old IT director in West Yorkshire, had invested about £20,000 across bitcoin, ether and dogecoin. He had been investing in cryptocurrency for ten years, mainly through Coinbase.
Stanley reported no unusual activity in his own account. Still, the Binance incident prompted him to move some assets to several exchanges in an effort to spread his exposure.
He worried that a single vulnerability or employee mistake could compromise an exchange, and that attackers might bypass safeguards such as SMS verification, facial recognition or voice recognition. He began checking his accounts more frequently but did not abandon cryptocurrency.
His distinction was explicit: he had lost confidence in trading and custody platforms, not in blockchain technology itself.
What Coinbase said
In its response, Coinbase said assets on its platform remained users’ property and would not be lent or otherwise used without permission. It said the vast majority were held in secure offline cold wallets, supported by multiple safeguards, including system-access controls and tools to help customers protect their accounts.
Those statements describe Coinbase’s position on ownership, asset use and security. The article does not provide an independent assessment of those protections, a reserve-and-liability comparison or details of compensation obligations following a loss.