Near Protocol lost about 4% on November 1. In a mixed tape that made it one of the softer names, and nobody has pointed to a Near-specific reason. It traded with the market, and Binance set the mood.

Crypto market summary for November 1

The backdrop is a theft of roughly $6.3 billion to $6.4 billion from the exchange, depending on whose tally you use. It is the largest crypto hack on record. The exploit hit a day earlier and pushed Bitcoin toward $77,000. By the weekend Bitcoin was around $78,300, down about 2.4% over 24 hours, per CoinGecko data.

After a shock that size, a mixed market is close to a relief. A record hack could easily have set off an indiscriminate selloff. Instead some tokens slid, some held, and Near's 4% decline landed mid-pack. Altcoins with thinner liquidity tend to take the sharper end of a risk-off move. I think that's the likeliest explanation here, though it's an inference, not a finding.

The more interesting action was on the research desks.

Wall Street says buy the stocks

Three brokerages (Cantor Fitzgerald, TD Cowen and Compass Point) put out Friday research notes making the case that the Binance breach need not stall the market's recovery, according to Decrypt. Their shared preference is listed crypto companies rather than the tokens themselves.

For Cantor's Ramsey El-Assal, the speed of the response was the key datapoint. Roughly $3 billion of the stolen assets were frozen by stablecoin issuers and other parties: upward of $1.5 billion by Tether, about $800 million by Circle, and near $200 million by Ripple. His forecast is that Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy stock will recover once the initial alarm fades. "We would be buyers on weakness," he wrote, and added that "this is not 2022."

TD Cowen's Lance Vitanza drew a line between Binance's security lapse and the Bitcoin network itself. His view: this is a failure at one exchange, not a flaw in Bitcoin, and it gives investors an opening to build positions in Bitcoin and in listed companies that hold it.

On the Compass Point side, Ed Engel and Michael Donovan judged that Binance can comfortably absorb the shortfall, writing that it has "more than enough liquidity to cover the hole." The exchange has set aside $6.34 billion to make customers whole and has assured them their holdings are secure. The pair also named two knock-on risks. Reimbursing customers could tighten stablecoin supply, and competitors like Coinbase and Hyperliquid could win business that leaves Binance. Their watch zone for Bitcoin is $75,000 to $77,000.

The stocks-over-tokens pitch has a tidy logic. Listed proxies give crypto exposure without exchange custody risk, which is exactly what this episode put on display. I'd add one caution. Those shares carry their own sensitivity to Bitcoin's price, so they don't hedge a deeper slide. Same bet, different wrapper.

The less cheerful read

Not every analyst is that relaxed. Cristiano Ventricelli, who covers digital assets at Moody's Ratings, pointed to the dangers of hot wallets and to risk piling up in large centralized intermediaries. In his view the real consequences hinge on final losses, which counterparties were hit, how much gets recovered, and whether confidence frays more broadly.

That last item is the unknown. Frozen funds are a good sign, but they aren't recovered funds.

As for the investigation, U.S. law enforcement is now involved: the Secret Service and the FBI are both looking into the theft. Separately, TRM and Chainalysis have each tied it to North Korea's TraderTraitor group. Attribution from blockchain analytics firms is usually persuasive. It still isn't a court finding, and no charges have been announced.

What comes next

Three things will decide whether November 1's mixed tape becomes a trend. First, whether Bitcoin holds the $75,000 to $77,000 zone Compass Point flagged. Second, how fast Binance repays users, and whether that drains stablecoin liquidity as the analysts fear. Third, whether more of the stolen money gets frozen or starts moving through mixers and bridges. Smaller tokens like Near will likely follow Bitcoin's lead on all three.