CZ breaks silence on Binance hack, wants a crypto security alliance

Changpeng "CZ" Zhao is back in front of a microphone, and his message is blunt: the hackers are getting faster, and crypto needs to team up. In his first public interview since the Oct. 29 Binance hack, the exchange's cofounder and former CEO told the Talking Tokens podcast that AI is accelerating cyberattacks across the whole industry, not just his old shop. His fix? More AI on defense, more security staff, and partnerships with AI security firms.

"The speed of hacking is going to pick up because of AI capabilities [being] so strong now," Zhao said, adding that the only way to fight a monster is to become one. He wants an industry alliance where companies swap lessons, share best practices, run cross-audits and freeze stolen funds faster. Security, in his view, is a never-ending process rather than a box to tick before adoption.

Binance revealed earlier Tuesday how the attack unfolded: hackers used a fake job interview to compromise an employee's computer, then leaned on an internal AI tool to pull it off. The exchange also said it caught and blocked 57 suspected North Korea-linked cyber threats in 2026. The incident wasn't isolated, either, according to the outlet, which points to an AI-assisted breach at blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis and a $46 million security incident at Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin.

Zhao said he got word around midnight in the UAE and stayed focused on talking to the community while Binance's team moved to contain the attack and shield users. He credited the company's response, its financial muscle and user trust for keeping markets calm and bringing net inflows back in. Security incidents, he argued, are preventable with enough effort, though complacency is the real enemy.

He hasn't discussed the hack with President Donald Trump or other U.S. officials, but said Binance and the wider industry would welcome government help. Trump has said the U.S. was "looking into it." Zhao framed the stakes as bigger than one company: with crypto tied to stablecoins, tokenized stocks, real-world assets and traditional finance, he said a hit this size has real economic fallout elsewhere and lands at the national security level.

Still, Zhao sounded optimistic about the tools at hand. He sees AI helping sniff out software vulnerabilities and harden defenses, while blockchain could power faster transactions that AI agents facilitate. The pitch is less about building walls than keeping pace — because in this fight, standing still looks a lot like falling behind.