The largest crypto hack on record is still being felt across the industry. On Monday, OKX founder and CEO Star Xu published a lengthy response to the Binance breach, paired with a cartoon tha
The largest crypto hack on record is still being felt across the industry. On Monday, OKX founder and CEO Star Xu published a lengthy response to the Binance breach, paired with a cartoon that shows a scythe-wielding figure walking past bloodied doors marked with rival exchanges and knocking on OKX's.
An AI-generated cartoon OKX founder Star Xu shared with his post. Source: Star Xu on X"This cartoon makes me feel both proud and under tremendous pressure," Xu wrote. "I will never claim that OKX is absolutely safe or immune to attacks. No company can honestly make that promise."
The image, labeled as AI-generated, shows four doors marked Bybit, Bitget, Binance and OKX.
Red stains trail from the first three, and Xu's face appears on the fourth. Xu last week called the recent security incidents at Bybit, Bitget and now Binance a wake-up call for every leader in the industry.
Binance first disclosed the breach on Thursday, estimating the total impact at about $6.3 billion.
The exchange says roughly $3 billion was frozen on-chain, that it has found no evidence of a wallet private-key leak and that 90% of the impact is now covered, with no loss falling on users.
Xu said OKX itself was not attacked. "Not because OKX was compromised," he wrote. "But because an attack on one major exchange is a warning to the entire industry."
He said his teams have been working around the clock on four things.
They are tracking the stolen funds in real time to keep them from being laundered through OKX's exchange or its Web3 DEX aggregator, tightening market risk controls against liquidity shocks and cascading liquidations, studying the attack's methods including the security risks introduced by AI coding tools, and reviewing OKX's own controls, access management and wallet infrastructure.
Xu also swiped at exchanges he says treat a rival's crisis as a business opportunity, though he named no target. "We take security threats seriously and professionally—not as a marketing opportunity," he wrote. "While some may see such moments as opportunities to launch promotional campaigns, generate traffic, or compete for market share, our priority has been different."
Xu and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao have one of crypto's longest-running rivalries. Zhao was chief technology officer at OKCoin, the exchange Xu founded that later became OKX, before leaving in 2015. Xu has long accused Zhao of falsifying a contract from that period, which Zhao denies.
The feud reignited in April when Zhao's memoir "Freedom of Money" revisited that history. Xu called Zhao a "habitual liar," and Zhao answered by offering a $1 billion bet over a separate claim about his divorce.
"Competition should drive better products and services. Security should bring the industry together," Xu wrote on Monday. "Protecting customer assets is our first responsibility. And we will never take your trust for granted."
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments are highly volatile and risky. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
