Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Thursday it had frozen US$3 billion in crypto assets as it investigated a potential security breach, with stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether freezing related assets.

“Binance will cover all hacking losses,” Binance co-founder Yi He said, without providing more details about the incident.

The market impact of the possible hacking, which could be the largest-ever crypto heist according to analytics firm Chainalysis, was felt immediately in early Asian trading on Friday.

Bitcoin dropped about 2 percent to a six-week low of US$77,646 and ether fell around 2 percent to a two-month low of US$2,238.76. BNB, a token originally launched as Binance Coin that can be used to pay Binance…