Read a simple explainer of what happened during the 2026 $6.3B hack at Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange.

A look at the biggest cryptocurrency heists, be they from an exchange, smart contract, or a business, including amounts, methods, reparations, and consequences.

As crypto markets declined during the post-pandemic slowdown, Sam Bankman-Fried propped up the markets with billions he'd earned leading FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges. Then, in one of the most rapid financial implosions in modern history, the exchange collapsed as investors rushed to withdraw money.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, rose to fame as a crypto visionary and was hailed as a genius. But he had a quick downfall in late 2022 when reports surfaced, implicating him in massive fraud.

This podcast episode details a 2017 credit bureau hack in which Equifax data about millions of Americans was compromised. It dives into the history of credit bureaus, specifically how they became legally allowed to access Americans' financial information without Americans actually volunteering it themselves.

Digital currencies based solely on misspellings of former President Joe Biden’s name have skyrocketed, and backers of a token based on a Shiba Inu wearing a hat raised $690K to get their logo on the Las Vegas Sphere.

The rapid collapse of FTX, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, in late 2022 shocked the world. At the center of the fiasco was Sam Bankman-Fried, a 29-year-old wunderkind who had entranced politicians, journalists, financiers, and others with his melding of altruism and digital currency. The sordid details revealed as the empire fell captured public attention—venture into the death spiral with this in-depth podcast from Bloomberg.

Jimmy Zhong performed a bitcoin heist—stealing more than 51,000 BTC from Silk Road in 2012. For years, he stayed under the radar, using crypto mixers to hide his tracks. But one small mistake in 2019 led investigators straight to him.

Crypto exchanges have grown alongside and fueled the boom in digital currencies. Popular exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance each have separate features, fee structures, and more. You can learn how to begin with the platforms, how to carry out research, and when to be aware of the associated risks.

Just before Sam Bankman-Fried declared FTX bankrupt in November of 2022, he sought to raise funds quickly to try to save the cryptocurrency exchange. As part of that attempt, he sent around a glimpse of the exchange's current balance sheet, which showed the company had liabilities of $9 billion with only $900 million in liquid assets. Check out the visualization here.

Hackers using stolen credit cards would create "Fortnite" accounts and purchase V-bucks, the in-game currency. The hackers would then sell the entire "Fortnite" account on sites like eBay. For instance, an account with $100 worth of stolen V-bucks might sell $25 on eBay.

James Parker discovered a glitch in an Australian cryptocurrency exchange that would allow him to cash in credits worth over $20M and make big gifts to his friends. Like most loopholes, the authorities found out, but not before his life was transformed. The first in a six-part series.

Nearly half of the world's portfolio of stocks and bonds originate in the US. Roughly 1% of all investable assets are in the form of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin, the most popular and well-known example of a cryptocurrency, came on the scene around 2010, with its evangelists proclaiming it would eventually displace government-backed traditional cash. While the concept of a digital currency may seem straightforward, the details can be deceptively simple. This quick video overview provides the foundation for a deeper dive into the world of decentralized currency.

In March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank—the nation's 16th largest bank at the time—collapsed after a rapid run on its deposits. Among other factors, the bank had placed more than half of its investments into long-term bonds, leaving it without the necessary cash on hand as its clients, largely start ups, panicked and withdrew their money at the same time. This visualization lays out the timeline and impact of the collapse.

This blog is a preview of the 2022 Crypto Crime Report, offering a summary of ransomware activity in 2021, the most active strains of ransomware, and more (w/ data, charts, and illustrations).

In 2024, a banking middleman called Synapse declared bankruptcy. Unfortunately, it also locked roughly 100,000 Americans out of their own money, which prompted a class action lawsuit.

One year after its launch, Ethereum was forked into two blockchains as a workaround to return funds stolen in a major hack to users. To this day, Ethereum Classic operates separately from Ethereum, and the two blockchains have different goals. Because of this split, investors must be cautious and ensure they’re interacting with the correct blockchain. Funds can’t simply be transferred from one to the other. Learn more here.

A major feature of the modern financial system is trust: if an institution loses it, customers will quickly withdraw deposits and stockholders will sell their shares. This digestible animated video looks into the nature and history of bank runs and...

Robbers stole the gems from a Brinks truck in Lebec, California, in July 2022. The truck was transporting the jewels to different jewelry shows in the state, and thieves stole diamonds, emeralds, gold, rubies, and designer watches while one driver was asleep and the other was getting food. Some of the stolen jewelry has been recovered.

While crypto feels new, it actually dates to 1983, with eCash's creation. However, a lot has happened in the crypto world over the past few years in particular—crypto's market cap surpassed $2T for the first time in 2021, for instance. A timeline of crypto's history details the events in between.

Long before the notorious June 17 intrusion, the burglars successfully accessed and planted listening devices in the DNC offices on May 28—showing how deeply premeditated the operation was and how the scandal's roots stretched back well before the arrests.

To get a sense of the grim state of data security today, take a look at this infographic from TruthFinder that explains why 2018 was the year of the data breach tsunami.

Cryptocurrency is poised to drastically change everything in the financial world, including financial arrangements. Decentralized finance makes it easier for virtually anyone to take advantage of financial markets without the need for a bank. However, there are new risks involved as well. Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics Kevin Werbach, an expert on Bitcoin and blockchains discusses it all in detail in The Conversation.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, traded his luxury Bahamian penthouse for a courtroom and jailhouse. As part of his trial, the prosecution looked into his multimillion-dollar home in the Bahamas he...

The concept of cryptocurrency emerged more than a decade ago, with a famous whitepaper on bitcoin. To fully understand the rise of bitcoin, Bloomberg’s Matt Levine developed this comprehensive four-part series exploring the broader crypto and blockchain ecosystems, where they came from and how they work (subscription required).

Michael Lewis released a book, "Going Infinite," on the day the subject of the book began his high-profile fraud trial. The book delves into the life of Sam Bankman-Fried, a young billionaire in the cryptocurrency world. Find out what the bestselling author discovered over two years and 100 interviews with Bankman-Fried.

One of the world's largest stablecoin's reserves were held at Silicon Valley Bank, which famously failed in March 2023. USDC briefly lost its peg to the US dollar for a time as a result, within investors pulling out billions of dollars.

Investing comes with great opportunities for reward, but it also carries great risk. Investors learned that the hard way when Enron collapsed. Everyone lost money—from the largest institutions on Wall Street to mom-and-pop investors who bought S&P 500 index funds. This series from American Scandal starts with a close-up into an investment manager at Enron who started to unravel the accounting scandal happening behind the scenes. Listen here.

In September 2025, a Chinese state-sponsored group targeted 30 large tech companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturing companies, and government agencies by manipulating Claude Code, having succeeded in infiltrating a small subset. The cyberattack is believed to have been the first of its scale carried out without major human intervention.

It’s been a rough 10 years in cybersecurity—and it’s only getting worse. From the Stuxnet to the Sony Hack, learn about the worst cyberattacks over the last decade.

Silicon Valley Bank—the 16th largest bank in the US—served many tech startups in the area as well as many venture capitalists. The bank collapsed in 2023—in a single day, bankers took out $42B.

The robbery of the world's most visited museum took less than ten minutes and resulted in worldwide shock. The thieves used a ladder to break into the building and steal eight pieces of French crown jewels, and then escaped on motorbikes.

Cyber crime is expected to cost the global economy trillions per year by 2025. This data illustration showcases the countries with the most severe cyber attacks from 2006-2020.

On October 19, 2025, several people dressed as construction workers climbed a construction lift and broke into the Louvre, stealing roughly $100M of crown jewels. This podcast breaks down the specifics of the heist.

Every year, ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin explains what his crypto platform is in a 30-minute presentation at the Ethereum Foundation’s event, Devcon. Buterin’s explanation goes deeper than a simple 101 explanation. To learn more about the current state of ethereum, what’s changed recently, and what Buterin expects down the road, watch this video.

CEO and Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd said the company is still performing very well. She added that the business makes $1B per year and referred to it as profitable. She went on to say "who knows what people trade stock on?" and that she believes the stock market has written Bumble off as if it were debt

While some cryptocurrency advocates might argue that it's more difficult to counterfeit crypto than physical currency, some estimate that fake cryptocurrencies are losing crypto users at least $1.6B each year.

Some of the brightest minds at Andreesen-Horowitz, one of the country’s leading venture capital firms, believe the cryptocurrency ecosystem will revolutionize global finance in the coming decades. This podcast recounts, through their view, the history of crypto, how it works, and trends they see emerging in the future.