PARIS: The digital-asset industry has just suffered the biggest heist in its brief history with the US$6.3 billion hacking of Binance the number one crypto platform. Yet the messaging from the top is that things are going to be A-okay.

The company has promised to cover all losses and it says customer funds are safe. The traceability of blockchain transactions has allowed some intermediaries to freeze billions in assets linked to the incident, and Binance says it’s started to recover stolen sums. The market reaction has been relatively contained so far. The price of Bitcoin is down about 2 per cent.

At the risk of going against the unshakable faith of crypto evangelists, however, I’m not sure everything really is okay. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the hack itself, although initial investigations by Binance suggest a software engineer’s compromised laptop was involved.

BROADER QUESTIONS RAISED That a theft of this magnitude could happen, in part, via a single vulnerable device is sobering. One of the vaunted benefits of blockchain finance is that its decentralised storage and transactions should make it more secure. But this is another reminder that it has multiple points of vulnerability to hackers, whether they’re targeting centralised crypto exchanges or using the old-school approach of cracking someone’s personal IT.

Nowhere is fully safe. Even those who keep their digital coins offline on physical devices have been exposed to theft via hidden hardware implants. And a rise in physical assaults to get access to people’s crypto passwords shows being your own bank might demand real-world bodyguards.

The hack’s aftermath also raises broader questions about a market that’s trying to go mainstream.

The swiftness with which withdrawals from Binance were suspended - and billions of the various stablecoins traded on the exchange frozen - points to the contradictions of a decentralised system where your own personal stash of coins ends up not being as sacrosanct as you believed. The socialised losses of bank runs and the red tape of traditional finance aren’t meant to figure in this libertarian world.

Presumably these lockdowns were meant to avoid panic selling as well as fighting off the criminals, but what about crypto traders who would have taken this hack as a signal to cut their holdings? After all, tracking down ill-gotten digital gains is an arduous task that can take months or years given the need to cooperate across borders and between multiple legal authorities.

“The speed of the freezing of around US$3 billion worth of stablecoins by Tether and Circle is unprecedented,” says Marcin Zarakowski of Recoveris, a digital-asset recovery firm. It also shows the huge power of discretion of the companies behind these stablecoins, which are sold on the basis of being more solid stores of value than Bitcoin because they’re pegged to the dollar. “A regular crypto holder couldn’t expect such treatment,” Zarakowski tells me.

Sure, the concerted effort to avoid any faint chance of a Lehman-style digital crash will be seen by many traders as understandable, even commendable. Traditional finance firms also have the power to gate withdrawals for the good of a fund. But this circling of the wagons by the exchange and the companies behind the assets traded on it adds a whole other level.

Then there was Binance’s breezy pledge to plug any holes after locating US$3 billion of the stolen assets - meaning there would still be about US$3.3 billion unaccounted for. The platform’s light-hearted promise that “your funds are SAFU”, in reference to a vehicle set aside by the exchange to cover losses of this kind, is hardly reassuring. That pot of digital insurance money is held in Bitcoin and its value is roughly equivalent to US$1 billion. The numbers aren’t quite adding up yet.

Data from crypto specialist Kaiko suggests the market impact of this hack across crypto exchanges is similar to last year’s far smaller Bybit attack, which should offer comfort. And yet it’s hard to be sure of anything without seeing traders’ reactions when they’re free to start making withdrawals again. A NEED FOR RESERVES?

With the imminent US midterm elections potentially heralding an end to the US government’s crypto boosterism, a stance that has helped enrich Donald Trump, the Binance hack might be a moment for this industry to take proper stock if it truly wants legitimacy.

A UCL paper published last year recommended crypto exchanges set aside more reserves in case of a crisis like this one, and said creating a trustworthy market required building even more “guardians of trust” than traditional finance. Co-Pierre Georg of the Frankfurt School of Finance offers a more straightforward suggestion: Binance’s SAFU fund could be held in real dollars rather than Bitcoin, and at a regulated institution. That would be more reassuring than how it’s done today.

And at a time when artificial intelligence agents are giving cybersecurity teams sleepless nights, it might be worth asking if it would be wiser to reduce one’s exposure to crypto assets. History suggests digital-asset crises aren’t kind to average punters. A recent OECD publication found retail investors bore a “disproportionate” share of losses during past crypto downturns.

So while buying digital assets to hedge against inflation has been winning fans, the risk might be underpriced right now. This month, the influential financial researcher Tom Lee of Fundstrat asked his followers: “Do you own enough crypto?”The answer after this week might be: Maybe we own too much.