Binance $6.3B record hack sparks pre-election political chatter

Soon after the $6.3 billion hack of Binance, the biggest in crypto history, a few political and administration figures began offering opinions, with a US election approaching on Nov. 3 and voting already having begun in many locations.

President Donald Trump was asked at a news conference on Friday about the hack of Binance. “We don’t know. We’re looking at that, the hack with Binance. They’re saying they’re going to get it back, they’re saying they’re guaranteeing it,” he replied.

The crypto exchange said in a post on X late Friday that it would cover any losses. “We want to be clear about our commitment: Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users.” It added that about $3 billion of the stolen funds had already been frozen in various locations.

It was not clear whether there was any immediate political advantage to be gained from the hack, which was widely attributed to a North Korean group, but Republican and Democratic sides began staking out positions almost immediately.

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican and longtime crypto advocate, cited the stalled Clarity Act in a Friday post on X. “Yesterday, hackers stole more than $6 billion from Binance in less than 4 hours, the biggest heist in history. The Clarity Act would have given crypto firms legal cover to freeze suspicious transactions the instant law enforcement calls. Every minute lost is money gone for good,” she wrote.

The Senate on Sept. 15 failed to pass a cloture motion on the Clarity Act that would have established the country’s first regulatory framework for digital assets.

The bill had stalled over proposed ethics provisions that would restrict government officials and their families from issuing or profiting from digital assets while in office.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission then submitted a regulatory action on Sept. 18 covering crypto asset transactions and markets for White House review, as the agency moved forward with its approach to overseeing the digital asset sector.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig referred to crypto market regulation on Friday after the Binance hack, saying in a TV appearance: “This proves our exact point in proposing regulations for crypto markets. … The real issue here is that these are unregulated offshore exchanges and they don’t have the same sorts of safeguards that we have in our financial markets here in the United States.”

Still, Democratic Representative Maxine Waters said in a Friday news release that “The reported $6.3 billion hack of Binance should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the cryptocurrency industry can operate without strong accountability. Yet, Trump and Congressional Republicans have been set on pushing a deregulatory agenda that weakens compliance mandates and oversight of the crypto industry, not to mention the Trump family’s own questionable ties to the company.”

She also commented on past relations between Binance and the Trump family, saying, “Remember that after Binance’s owner, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), gave over $2 billion to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission’s Chair Paul Atkins dropped the SEC’s slam-dunk fraud case against Binance and CZ, and Trump fully pardoned CZ, allowing him to again get involved with crypto.”

Meanwhile, Binance said it was working with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, token issuers and other exchanges to trace and recover the stolen funds.

The company also promised to publish a postmortem incident report after conducting a full security review.

“We will provide a detailed technical report outlining what happened, the lessons learned and the additional safeguards being implemented,” Binance said.