Bitcoin Basics

Not Your Keys: The Binance Hack Lesson, Plus Bitcoin Core Patches AI-Found Bugs

Illustration of a glowing orange key on the floor in front of a partly open steel vault door, with a glowing orange chain fading into a dark background

Bitcoin Newsletter
November 2, 2026

Top Bitcoin Adoption Stories (October 26 to November 2, 2026)

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This week was a lesson in who holds the keys. An exchange hack froze withdrawals while the stolen bitcoin sat in plain view on the public ledger, Bitcoin Core patched bugs found by an AI scan, Strategy kept stacking, a Thai court confirmed bitcoin is property, and a blackout study showed people kept using bitcoin even with the internet cut off.

1. The Binance Hack: 18,270 Stolen BTC, Unmoved and in Plain Sight

Binance said on October 30 that its initial investigation suggests a compromised engineer’s laptop let an attacker into one of its systems and submit unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange put the estimated total impact, across many different assets, at around $6.3 billion and said it found no evidence that any wallet private key had leaked. On October 31 the FBI said North Korean hackers it calls “TraderTraitor” were responsible for the theft, which happened on or about October 29, and published the addresses involved, including 19 Bitcoin addresses. CoinDesk traced about 18,270 BTC sent from Binance’s bitcoin hot wallet to the attacker and split across 19 wallets. When we checked the FBI’s 19 Bitcoin addresses on mempool.space this morning (November 2, block 974,265), they held 18,270.2 BTC between them, and none of those coins had been spent.

Binance paused withdrawals during the incident while deposits kept working. In its November 1 recovery update, it said the first phase of withdrawals would resume that day, with the Bitcoin network at the top of its list, that it had covered about 95% of the impacted amount with company resources, and that its BTC balances are fully backed. Binance says users will not bear the losses.

Key Takeaway: The attack hit a company’s systems, not the Bitcoin network. But while withdrawals were paused, nobody could move their coins off the exchange. Bitcoin in a wallet where you hold the keys never needs anyone’s permission to move. And because the ledger is public, anyone in the world can watch the stolen coins sit exactly where they are.

2. Bitcoin Core Patches Three Bugs Found by an AI Scan

Bitcoin Core released versions 32.1, 31.2, 30.4 and 29.5 on October 27 and 28, fixing two medium-severity vulnerabilities and one low-severity vulnerability, and published the details on October 28. According to the three security advisories, all three bugs were discovered through an automated LLM (AI) scan, part of Elias Rohrer’s Project Loupe at Spiral, and validated and reported to the Core team by developer Gregory Sanders. The most serious one: on platforms other than Linux, a malicious peer could make a node run out of memory by sending TCP “urgent” data, which the advisory says could “trivially crash any Windows, macOS or BSD node it is connected to.” Linux nodes were not affected. The second let a malicious peer slowly grow a node’s memory use, by up to 2MB per hour per inbound peer and 5MB per hour per outbound peer. The third, rated low severity and called impractical to exploit, involves a miner crafting blocks whose undo data overflows a file; the fix covers 64-bit systems, while 32-bit systems and nodes storing blocks on FAT32 remain affected.

Core says these advisories follow its accelerated process for “easily discoverable” vulnerabilities. Details of three other, unrelated vulnerabilities pre-announced with version 32.1 will be shared in two weeks through the regular process.

Key Takeaway: If you run a node, update it. Your own node is how you verify your own bitcoin without trusting anyone. Bugs get found, fixed and explained in public, and anyone can read the code and the advisories.

3. Strategy Keeps Stacking: 811 BTC More, 849,327 BTC Total

Strategy bought 811 BTC between October 26 and November 1, according to an SEC 8-K filed this morning, November 2. That brought its holdings to 849,327 BTC as of November 1. The filing says the purchases were made with proceeds from selling its common stock.

Key Takeaway: Strategy is still adding BTC every week, the same habit an individual stacker follows with sats. Just remember that owning a treasury company’s stock is not the same as holding bitcoin in your own wallet.

4. Thailand’s Supreme Court Rules Bitcoin Is Property

Thailand’s Supreme Court, in a plenary decision (No. 4929/2569), has ruled that bitcoin is property that can be the object of a robbery, according to Siam Blockchain and Crypto Briefing, which both reported it on October 28. The case began in September 2022 on Koh Samui, where a gang threatened and assaulted a tourist and forced the victim to transfer 2.480801 BTC. The court said bitcoin is a unit of data that exists on a network, has a price and can be possessed, so the money taken counted as property. Siam Blockchain reports that the court read this against Sections 137 and 138 of Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code. The defendant’s 10-year prison sentence stands, and he must return the bitcoin or pay its value in cash.

Key Takeaway: When the law treats bitcoin as property, stealing it is treated like any other theft, and a court can order it returned. The case is also a reminder to keep your holdings private: the fewer people who know about your stack, the safer you are.

5. Iran’s Bitcoin Use Survived Two Internet Blackouts

In its 2026 Middle East and North Africa report, published October 26, Chainalysis looked at everyday bitcoin use inside Iran (it says it excluded activity it understands to be illicit) during two government internet shutdowns this year: 20 days in January, and 88 days right after the start of the war. In the first week of the first blackout, Iranian bitcoin wallets made nearly 90% fewer bitcoin transactions than in Chainalysis’s baseline period, and activity bounced back above the baseline as soon as the blackout lifted. During the second blackout, transactions fell by around 80% but never to zero, and climbed back to over 75% of the baseline by its end. When restrictions began to lift in late May, activity jumped to nearly double the baseline. “Rather than crush bitcoin activity, the blackouts had bottled it up,” Chainalysis wrote, noting that blackouts stop people from spending inside a disconnected country, not from receiving.

Key Takeaway: Bitcoin doesn’t ask anyone’s permission. Even with the internet switched off, people kept using it as best they could, and the moment the connection came back, they used it more than before.

6. What Beginners Should Notice

Every story this week comes back to control. An exchange holding coins for its customers had to pause withdrawals after a hack. The stolen bitcoin can’t be hidden, because the ledger is public. Node software keeps getting checked and fixed in the open. A court confirmed that bitcoin is property worth protecting. And people cut off from the internet still found ways to keep using bitcoin.

Key Takeaway: Bitcoin gives you the option to be your own bank, but only if you take it. Learn to hold your own keys, back up your seed phrase offline, keep your stack private, and consider running your own node. That is how you truly own your sats.

Related reading: Ready to take your coins off an exchange? Start with What Is a Bitcoin Wallet? A Beginner’s Guide. For why it matters, see today’s book quote from Andreas M. Antonopoulos: “A Bitcoin wallet is not like a bank account. It’s more like a personal safe.”

Sources

Watch on YouTube

Want these stories in video form? Watch Top 6 Bitcoin News: Binance Reopens Withdrawals (November 1, 2026) (covers the Binance hack and the FBI’s Bitcoin addresses), Top 6 Bitcoin News: AI Found Bitcoin Core Bugs, Update Your Node (October 29, 2026) and Top 6 Bitcoin News: Iran’s Bitcoin Use Outlasts the Internet Blackout (October 27, 2026), or catch the daily rundown: Bitcoin News Today (Daily). Subscribe to Bitcoin Basics on YouTube

This post is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Bitcoin only, no altcoin coverage.

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