CZ Says the Binance Hack Is Smaller Than Mt. Gox in Bitcoin Terms. What Did Bitcoin Do After Mt. Gox?
Every major crypto exchange collapse has rattled Bitcoin, but the aftermath tells a story most holders never expect. History shows the first month is almost never the signal that matters.
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Binance says customer funds are safe. Even so, Wall Street and crypto holders spent the last days of October 2026 trying to gauge the biggest theft the industry has ever recorded. Hackers believed to be linked to North Korea have stolen an estimated $6.3 billion from the exchange, according to Binance’s assessment. DefiLlama, a crypto data tracker, ranks this hack above the LuBian ($3.5 billion) and Bybit ($1.4 billion) hacks combined.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, pushed back on the size of the theft on October 30, 2026. He said the hack is the biggest in USD terms, but not in Bitcoin terms, since Mt. Gox involved 650,000 BTC. “It hurts, but we survive,” said CZ. We’ve already covered how the Binance heist unfolded, so here we focus on what Bitcoin’s price did after earlier hacks.
Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) trades at $77,614, which is 38.44% below its all-time high of $126,080 reached on October 6, 2025. So if Mt. Gox was the bigger blow, what did Bitcoin do in the year after Mt. Gox and the big failures that came later?
Binance Lost Far Fewer Coins Than Mt. Gox
When considering the number of coins stolen, CZ’s argument holds water. In 2014, Mt. Gox initially reported 850,000 BTC missing, though this was later adjusted to a loss of 650,000 BTC as some coins resurfaced. The Bitfinex hack in 2016 took 120,000 BTC.
According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, the Binance theft involved around 18,270 BTC. The hackers dispersed these coins across 19 addresses with roughly 1,000 BTC each. These addresses haven’t moved the stolen funds to exchanges or mixers, where such assets are typically resold or laundered. So far, the stolen Bitcoin hasn’t reached anywhere it could be sold easily.
The initial hours following the hack were chaotic. When rumors of the attack spread, Elon Musk warned that “everyday is zeroday,” referring to a hacker term for exploiting vulnerabilities before they can be fixed.
What Bitcoin Did After Mt. Gox, Bitfinex and FTX
Historically, Bitcoin has reacted with volatility to major exchange hacks, especially in the first month after such events. The table below follows Bitcoin’s daily closes after three well-known collapses.
| Event | Date | BTC Close | After 30 Days | After 90 Days | After 1 Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mt. Gox | February 24, 2014 | $489 | +16% | +18.5% | -51.5% |
| Bitfinex hack | August 2, 2016 | $567 | +1.2% | +28.5% | +389.5% |
| FTX | November 8, 2022 | $18,579 | -7.3% | +22.7% | +91.9% |
After its collapse in February 2014, Mt. Gox saw Bitcoin rise by 16% in the first month and 18.5% by the end of three months. However, it ultimately fell by 51.5% over the year as the bear market took hold. In contrast, Bitcoin showed resilience after the August 2016 Bitfinex hack, climbing just 1.2% in the first month but skyrocketing by 389.5% over the following year as the market prepared for a bullish 2017.
The FTX collapse first dragged Bitcoin down 7.3% in 30 days, but it marked the cycle’s bottom, and Bitcoin surged 91.9% within a year. The Bybit hack in 2025 followed the same pattern. Bitcoin fell from $95,957 on February 21 to $76,301 by April 8, then touched $109,700 by May 21. Each time, traders sold on the news, but the broader cycle drove prices later.
Bitcoin Was Already Sliding Before the Binance Hack
Bitcoin was already under pressure before the Binance hack hit. It had dropped 8.52% over the previous 30 days and 11.37% since the start of 2026. Bitcoin also trades 29.16% lower than its price a year ago, and it fell further as news of the hack rattled crypto markets.
Bitcoin’s current chart resembles 2014 more than 2016, especially since it peaked in October 2025. Although it has mostly declined since then, Bitcoin has risen 22.22% over the past 90 days. Its lowest price in the last year was recorded on June 30, 2026, at $58,566.
Bitcoin is also holding above its 200-day moving average of $73,120, a key trend line that many traders monitor. However, it remains below its 50-day average of $81,901, indicating that the short-term trend is still downward.
Binance’s Balance Sheet Is the Difference Mt. Gox Never Had
The table suggests this hack probably won’t decide where Bitcoin trades a year from now, because the market cycle has made that call every time. For a holder, the first month after a big hack has mostly been noise, and the one-year result depended on where the cycle stood.
Binance’s circumstances differ from those in past events. While Mt. Gox went bankrupt, Bitfinex distributed its losses among users, and FTX fully collapsed, Binance remains operational and reassures users that their funds are secure. Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor emphasized on October 30, 2026, that “Binance has committed its own balance sheet to making customers whole. I expect it to deliver.”
However, some experts caution that Binance’s SAFU fund, an emergency reserve intended to cover user losses, might not fully cover every user. If Binance repays users in full and the 19 wallets stay dormant, the pressure from this hack could fade faster than it did after Mt. Gox. If the stolen coins start moving toward exchanges, though, Bitcoin could face fresh selling pressure while it trades 38.44% below its record.
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Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst and the editor of 24/7 Wall St.'s Crypto Desk, where he covers Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana and the altcoins investors search for most. His work focuses on price levels, spot ETF flows, on-chain data and the regulatory decisions that move crypto markets, written so a first-time buyer and a seasoned trader can both use it.
Sam has written about crypto professionally since 2019 and has published more than 2,000 articles. Before joining 24/7 Wall St., he wrote for crypto media outlets and Web3 companies and ghostwrote for crypto founders and token launches. His analysis is syndicated on Yahoo Finance, MSN and AOL and has been cited by other crypto news sites. He also founded MacLabs Marketing, a content and personal branding agency for crypto founders and executives.
When he isn't reading charts, Sam is usually at the gym or watching One Piece, a series he maintains has better tokenomics than most altcoins.
