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The announcement shook Latin America: the cryptocurrency giant Binance saw US$6.3 billion in digital assets compromised in what is already considered the largest hack in the history of this industry.
Binance has established itself for years as the largest cryptocurrency exchange platform in the world and, in countries like Argentina and Venezuela, news of this magnitude has generated deep uncertainty.
It is estimated that 19% of the Argentine population has investments in bitcoin, and a large part of the transactions are carried out through this platform.
In fact, according to Binance data, in 2024 7.2% of the platform's global traffic came from Argentina, the highest figure in the world.
Although the exact number of Binance users in the country is unknown so far, the news revived old financial ghosts.
Although the company announced that it will "cover all losses," it also reported that for the next 48 hours no withdrawals could be made while the technical problems resulting from the attack are resolved.
The measure evoked for many Argentines the memory of the "corralito," the restriction imposed in the early 2000s when, in the midst of a deep economic crisis, the government limited the withdrawal of bank deposits and restricted access to dollars in cash.
However, opinion leaders in the sector and those responsible for digital wallets highlighted the platform's rapid response.
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They also noted that the coordinated reaction of users and other companies prevented the situation from becoming an even more serious problem.
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"The speed with which other companies intervened to block the committed funds was one of the positive aspects of the episode," Ariel Sbdar, director of Cocos Capital, told the Infobae news portal.
But the incident also highlights a reality that has become more pronounced over the years: the instability of economic policies in some countries in the region has led many people to take refuge in cryptocurrencies.
"Between July 2025 and June 2026, US$88.5 billion [in cryptocurrencies] were moved in Argentina, 15.3% more than the previous year and a very relevant figure for a country of our size," Matías Alberti, general manager of Binance for Argentina and the Southern Cone, told the newspaper La Nación a few months ago.
Added to this phenomenon is Venezuela, a country that the analysis firm Chainalysis ranked 13th in the world in cryptocurrency adoption in 2024.
Many of those transactions are also carried out through Binance.
For experts, Argentina and Venezuela are different cases, but they share a history of economic instability.
Other countries in the region, especially in Central America, have also shown growing interest in these digital assets.
Added to this is Brazil, the largest cryptocurrency market in Latin America and where Binance is integrated with the Pix payment system.
However, the country has not experienced the problems of economic instability that have marked Argentina and Venezuela.
Argentina and inflation
Although Brazil is the main regional power in terms of cryptocurrencies, Binance finds one of its most dynamic markets in Argentina.
In recent years, the country has seen significant growth in the use of cryptocurrencies, many of them operated through the platform affected by the hack.
For many analysts, the high inflation of recent years, which reached close to 200% annually, together with the constant depreciation of the local currency, pushed many people to look for assets considered more stable.
One of them was bitcoin.
"Argentina is one of the markets with the highest adoption of cryptocurrencies, driven mainly by economic factors such as inflation, exchange rate volatility and the search for alternatives to preserve the value of savings," Andrés Ondarra, general manager of Nexo Argentina, explained to La Nación.
Therefore, there was fear that a hack of such proportions would end up affecting the country's financial and digital asset ecosystem.
However, the decision of several companies to freeze the compromised assets and Binance's promise to respond for the affected funds prevented the situation from translating into a new day of losses for Argentine investors.
But that doesn't mean the threat has gone away.
Both Ondarra and Sbdar, among other specialists, warned about possible fraud campaigns through malicious links directed at users trying to recover or verify their investments.
Furthermore, this new attack, the largest recorded so far in the industry, once again highlights the vulnerability of the sector.
In September alone, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget reported the theft of approximately $350 million in digital assets.
For Julio López, a computer security expert, the fact that such a large amount of money has been stolen in such a short time calls into question the solidity of a market like that of cryptocurrencies.
"Something has to change. Because events like this generate distrust in a sector that has not yet fully consolidated the trust of users," López told the TN news channel.
Venezuela: remittances and access to digital dollars
Although there is still no official data on the impact of the incident in Venezuela, several analysts consider that the impact could have been even greater, because the platform fulfills functions that go far beyond simply storing savings.
For many users, Binance is a tool to receive remittances, preserve their purchasing power, and access digital dollars outside the traditional banking system.
"It is an excellent platform to quickly convert the bolivars we receive into virtual currencies linked one by one to the US dollar," says analyst Aníbal Garrido in the podcast Separating money and the State.
"It allows you to protect yourself from inflation in a much simpler way than through the traditional banking system. And it facilitates the receipt of foreign currency, such as remittances sent by people from other countries," he adds.
"It has happened to me that I arrive at a store in Venezuela and ask: 'Do you accept cryptocurrencies?' They answer me: 'No, but I accept Binance.'"
In countries like Mexico, where a significant portion of bitcoin operations are carried out through this platform, the hack raised more questions about the security and future of cryptocurrency investments than immediate effects on users.
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