Binance investigates suspected hack as outflows reach up to $5.8 billion

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, appears to have suffered a major hack. Onchain data flagged by analyst Spreek shows about $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to an unlabeled wallet, with nearly $900 million subsequently moved across other wallets. Coinbase senior director and product leader Conor Grogan says the amount is up to $5.8 billion.

Investigation and user funds

While Binance has not publicly confirmed a breach, co-founder and Chief Customer Service Officer Yi He said the firm is actively investigating. Later Thursday night, He said users' funds are safe and that Binance will cover all hacking-related losses. Deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while the team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement, and Binance will share a full post-mortem once the investigation is complete.

Former CEO Changpeng Zhao said user funds are safe and that he expects them to be fully covered. Zhao said he does not manage Binance.com anymore, but as a shareholder he expects all user funds will be fully covered. He credited Tether and Circle for quickly freezing the funds.

Stablecoin freezes

Onchain data showed Tether and Circle froze a combined $1.79 billion in USDT and USDC held in a wallet that received billions of dollars in transfers from Binance hot wallets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin firm froze more than 1.567 billion USDT. Circle's Jeremy Allaire said it has frozen more than 800 million USDC associated with the incident.

Other market reactions

Blockaid said it is investigating approximately $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance hot wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche. Aave froze lending markets to prevent the Binance hacker from borrowing, onchain data shows. Aave said its contracts are unaffected and positions remain overcollateralized. As a precaution, all DAO-operated markets across V3 and V4 have been frozen; the freeze pauses new deposits and borrows, while users can still withdraw and repay existing positions. Aave said it will monitor the situation and unfreeze as soon as possible.

Binance.US was not affected by the reported incident. The firm said it is a separate, independent platform, and customer funds and services are secure and operating normally. The BNB token was down more than 5.5% at publication time.

Sources: The Block · TFTC