Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, said the roughly $6.3 billion Oct. 29 hack exposed security weaknesses and showed that industry competition receded during a crisis. In his first public remarks on the breach, Zhao said a long period without major incidents had created complacency and that all cyberattacks are preventable. Binance briefly halted withdrawals before restoring normal operations, said customer funds were safe and said losses would be covered through corporate reserves, the Secure Asset Fund for Users and insurance funds. Zhao said attacks that previously occurred every five to six months or roughly monthly had risen to nearly weekly, with artificial intelligence accelerating offensive operations; he cited four attacks in one day. Blockchain investigators described the 20-minute incident as the largest crypto hack to date, while the FBI attributed it with high confidence to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored cyber unit. North Korea reportedly denied involvement, and US President Donald Trump said the matter remained under investigation without a definitive conclusion. Zhao also said rival platforms helped Binance: Coinbase blocked transactions tied to the relevant addresses, Tether and Circle froze linked assets, and Bybit CEO Ben Zhou and OKX founder Xu Mingxing called for coordinated industry security standards. Zhao warned that repeated breaches could slow mainstream adoption and backed international cooperation and an industry alliance focused on best-practice sharing, cross-audits and rapid fund freezes as crypto expands into tokenized stocks, real-world assets and stablecoins.