Bitcoin changed hands near $78,000 on Sunday, November 2, three days after a $6.3 billion breach at Binance, and the question for a buyer is which of the majors offers the shortest, best-sourced path from here. A $1,000 position taken at Bitcoin’s $77,223 low on October 31 would be worth about $1,010 today, a real but thin recovery. The reserve math below is what turns that bounce into a trade.
According to CoinGecko , Bitcoin traded at $78,028 as of roughly 07:30 UTC, up 0.34% over 24 hours, with a market capitalization near $1.57 trillion. Ether changed hands at $2,280.51, up 0.64%, BNB at $707.34, up 0.46%, XRP at $1.25, down 0.12%, and Solana at $94.24, down 1.19%. The spread is the story: the assets tied to Binance’s recovery held firm, while Solana, which had no direct role in the incident, gave back the most.
Bitcoin Holds $78K After a 5% Two-Day Slide
The sell-off was sharp but contained. Bitcoin closed at $81,274 on October 29, before the FBI linked the theft to North Korean actors, then slid to $77,223 on October 31 while withdrawals were paused. That is a 4.98% drawdown in two days, and from that low Bitcoin has recovered 1.41%.
The technical picture is a re-test, not a breakout. The $77,000 to $76,500 zone acted as support through the weekend, while $79,200 is the first resistance traders are watching, followed by the $80,300 to $80,900 range where Bitcoin traded before the hack. These levels are reference points drawn from the last week of trading, not forecasts.
What Binance’s 95% Coverage Does and Does Not Prove
Binance’s fourth recovery update , published November 1, is the primary record of where the exchange stands. The company said “Binance has now covered approximately 95% of the impacted amount, up from 90% in our prior update.” That progression matters: coverage stood at roughly 80% on October 30, then 90% on October 31, and 95% on November 1.
The exact commitment is worth quoting. “Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users,” the exchange wrote, and it listed the ten assets that are now solvent: “All BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC balances are fully backed 100%.”
Three pools paid for that coverage: a partial deployment of the Secure Asset Fund for Users, a portion of the Futures insurance fund, and Binance’s corporate treasury. Binance also committed “to replenishing the SAFU to return the fund size to approximately US$1 billion.”
Here is what the 95% figure does not prove. It is a statement about Binance’s own replenishment, not an independent audit. The outstanding 5% consists of tokens outside the top ten that are less liquid and take longer to source, roughly $315 million against a $6.3 billion base. A reserve snapshot is a point-in-time inventory; it does not guarantee a user’s balance is solvent on any other day. That distinction is exactly why the zero-knowledge proof matters.
The Market-Cap Math Behind the Call
A best-crypto answer needs a denominator. Bitcoin’s $1.57 trillion market cap is 5.63 times Ether’s $278.75 billion and 28.2 times Solana’s $55.64 billion. BNB’s $93 billion is 1.67 times Solana’s. Those ratios explain the relative-strength trade that has favored the top of the table since the hack.
The 2x and 10x arithmetic is the sobering part. To double from here, Bitcoin needs to reach about $156,000, Ether about $4,560, and XRP about $2.50. A 10x on Bitcoin implies a $780,000 price and a $15.7 trillion market cap. By contrast, a 10x on XRP at $12.50 would put its cap near $791 billion, roughly the size of today’s entire Ether market. The shorter the path to a multiple, the more a coin has to stretch its fundamentals to get there.
Ether Is the Relative-Strength Trade This Week
Ether is the coin to watch for a mechanical reason: it is one of the ten assets Binance says are fully backed, and it has led the majors higher on the day. The dated catalyst is the reserve proof itself. Binance took a fresh reserve snapshot at 00:00 UTC on October 31 and posted it to its Proof of Reserves page . The full zero-knowledge proof, which lets each holder confirm their own balance is included in the reserves, “takes approximately 40 to 50 hours to generate,” which puts delivery around November 3.
That is a verifiable event, not a price forecast. A clean proof would close the loop on the exchange’s solvency question; a delay would reopen it. For Ether specifically, the reserve math is the reason it has outperformed Solana, which is not on Binance’s ten-token list as a headline guarantee of the same scope.
What Still Has to Happen Before Users Are Whole
The next observable signal is a publication, not a price level. Binance said its updated reserve report was expected this week, with the full zero-knowledge proof due around Tuesday, November 3. A post-incident technical report is also promised once the investigation concludes.
For Bitcoin buyers, the checklist is short. The $77,000 shelf held through the weekend. The $6.34 billion in company funds set aside removes the near-term tail risk of a run on user balances. What remains unproven is whether institutional demand returns. The BNB-led recovery and the $3.64 billion in net outflows that followed the hack, which Binance says equal 2.1% of its $171 billion in assets under management, are the two data points to weigh against the reserve proof.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bitcoin has held its $77,000 support through the Binance hack, but a 2x from here requires roughly $156,000. The case rests on reserve solvency and a return of institutional demand, not on any single catalyst.
Binance says it has covered about 95% of the $6.3 billion stolen using company funds, SAFU and its Futures insurance fund. The ten major tokens are fully backed, but the remaining 5% of less-liquid tokens is still being sourced.
Binance took a fresh reserve snapshot at 00:00 UTC on October 31. The full zero-knowledge proof, which takes 40 to 50 hours to generate, is expected around November 3, 2026.
Ether rose about 0.64% to $2,280 while Solana fell 1.19%. Ether is one of the ten tokens Binance lists as fully backed, which supports its relative strength against tokens with no direct role in the recovery.
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