🔔 $6.3bn stolen. Withdrawals just reopened.
Pyongyang had a busy week.
Listen to the same-day episode — Ep. 095
🔔 $6.3bn stolen. Withdrawals just reopened.
Pyongyang had a busy week.
📊 Today's Numbers
Bitcoin ▼ ~$77,903: still 2.3% below pre-hack levels
BNB (Binance Coin) ▼ -6%+: sharpest drop in the Binance ecosystem
ChiNext (China tech board) ▲ +3.28%: emergency meeting read as a backstop
Australia Building Approvals ▲ +5.10% MoM: triple the forecast, complicates RBA
RBA Cash Rate ■ 4.60%: fifth hike to 4.85% seen as 80% likely tomorrow
Nasdaq 100 ▼ -3.50% Friday: worst single session since June
₿ DIGITAL
Photo: Bruna Santos
The FBI Just Named North Korea in a $6.3bn Binance Heist
One compromised laptop. Four hours. Ten blockchains. The Binance breach from October 29 is now formally attributed to North Korean state-linked hackers, and at $6.3 billion it's roughly four times the previous record theft in crypto history. Withdrawals are reopening today, but this isn't fully over.
$3bn of the stolen funds were frozen on-chain, including $2.3bn in USDT and USDC moved against by Tether and Circle within hours of the breach.
Binance has replenished 95% of affected assets from its Secure Asset Fund for Users, with Bitcoin withdrawals going first in a phased reopening.
Bitcoin sits at ~$77,903 Monday morning, still 2.3% below where it was before the hack; BNB fell more than 6% and Ether dropped to ~$2,200 on Friday.
A Proof of Reserves report is due November 3. That's the next real test of confidence. Watch it closely.
💬 TRM Labs confirmed ~$6.36bn left Binance wallets in one night. The previous record was $1.5bn, set by the Bybit hack in February 2025. Whatever your view on crypto, the scale here is genuinely new.
📈 EQUITIES
Photo: Rafael Minguet Delgado
Beijing Called an Emergency Market Meeting. Stocks Listened.
China's regulators didn't wait. On the first trading day of November, the PBOC and CSRC sat down with securities firms and fund managers to work out how to stop the bleeding after Chinese equities had their worst month in over a decade. Markets got the message immediately.
ChiNext surged 3.28% and the Shanghai Composite gained 1.16% at Monday's midday break, even as the NBS Manufacturing PMI printed at 49.3 — contraction territory.
The focus of the meeting: improvements to the stock-repurchase relending policy, a mechanism that lets listed companies borrow centrally to buy back their own shares.
25 A-share companies unlock RMB 12.2bn in restricted shares this week, a potential overhang that could cap any rally if sentiment doesn't hold.
RMB 500bn in 92-day reverse repos mature Thursday, making this a meaningful liquidity moment regardless of what the regulators announce.
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Slush Shoots
Australia's Construction Boom Is Actually Arguing for Another Rate Hike
Building approvals in Australia jumped 5.1% in September, nearly triple what economists expected and a sharp reversal from August's 5.2% slide. The timing is awkward: the Reserve Bank of Australia decides on rates tomorrow, and markets already had an 80% chance of a hike priced in. This data doesn't help borrowers.
RBA cash rate currently at 4.60% after four hikes in 2026. A fifth, to 4.85%, is now the market consensus heading into tomorrow.
The approvals data cuts both ways. More construction means housing supply is finally responding. But stronger activity also signals the economy hasn't slowed enough to justify a pause.
ASX 200 closed at 8,908, up just 0.18%, with banks and financials the October standouts, up 6.91% and 7.68% respectively as rate-hike expectations boosted net interest margin bets.
💬 A fifth hike adds roughly AUD 80–100 per month to repayments on every AUD 500,000 of variable mortgage debt. That's the real number behind tomorrow's decision.
📰 Also Today
China Caixin PMI beat at 52.0 in October, well above the 51.6 consensus, even as the official NBS reading slipped to 49.3 — the divergence reflects the gap between private exporters (resilient) and large state firms (contracting), and the PBOC is watching both before deciding whether to ease further in Q4.
Saudi Arabia's GDP contracted 3.8% YoY in Q3 2026, a third consecutive quarter of decline, with Brent crude still sitting in the mid-$80s per barrel range against Riyadh's estimated $95 fiscal breakeven — OPEC+ held December cuts for the third straight month anyway.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 7.2% on Friday, its worst single-day loss of 2026, dragging the Nasdaq 100 down 3.5%; S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures each recovered at least 0.4% by early Monday Asia session, pointing toward some stabilisation at the New York open.
🎧 Listen to today's episode — The Open Bell
The Binance number — $6.3bn in four hours, from one laptop — is the kind of thing that stops a conversation cold. If you know someone it would stop cold, they should probably read this.
📬 Forwarded this? Subscribe free at theopenbell.co
Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.