Binance confirms breach with $6.3 billion impact; partners freeze $3 billion
Binance said a security breach had an estimated $6.3 billion impact. The exchange said partners had frozen about $3 billion of the affected assets, while the status of the remaining roughly $3.3 billion was unresolved.
Reuters directly reports Binance’s statement that a security breach had an estimated $6.3 billion impact and that partners had frozen approximately $3 billion of the affected assets, leaving roughly $3.3 billion unresolved. This is a material cybersecurity development with forward implications for Binance’s operations, custody credibility, asset recovery, and centralized-exchange counterparty risk. The $6.3 billion figure is described as an estimated impact rather than a confirmed permanent customer loss, so the final description avoids asserting more than the source supports. Price declines and analyst commentary are excluded under the anti-price-move rule. The exact time of Binance’s statement is not provided; the timestamp is estimated from the source’s explicit 0030 GMT status reference rather than using the Reuters publication time. Circle is approved because it is explicitly identified as having frozen affected USDC, while Coinbase is approved only as a clear peer-exchange beneficiary channel given the reported deposit and withdrawal suspension. Other proposed stakeholders rely on generic or highly speculative second-order effects and are excluded.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said a security breach had resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion impact that analysts said could amount to the biggest crypto heist ever.
Binance said it had worked with partners to freeze the affected assets, with about $3 billion located so far. It gave no update on the status of the remaining $3.3 billion.
Binance said on Thursday that a security breach had affected an estimated $6.3 billion in assets, potentially making it the biggest cryptocurrency heist on record. The world's largest crypto exchange said it had recovered or frozen about $3 billion, while the incident sent Bitcoin and other digital currencies lower.
~$3 billion of these funds have now been frozen, and Binance says it will cover all unrecovered hacking losses.
The full investigation remains ongoing.
Binance says the estimated total impact is around $6.3 billion and the verified total value of crypto frozen is $3 billion. This could increase as investigators trace additional assets.
Binance says deposits are operating normally, and withdrawals are expected to resume within 48 hours.
Analysts suspect North Korea’s TraderTraitor is behind the attack.
Binance has suffered the crypto industry's biggest-ever hack in a fresh blow to efforts to push digital assets into the mainstream.
The exchange said $6.3 billion worth of funds were affected, with $3 billion in crypto frozen, and that it had suspended all withdrawals as it works with law enforcement and completes a security revamp.
Binance sets aside $6.34 billion to cover incident
Binance says it has reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover an incident affecting user assets.
The exchange also reported $5 billion already held in impacted token assets and $3 billion frozen with assistance from industry partners.
Binance is working with law enforcement to recover affected assets and says all user funds will be publicly verified through its Proof of Reserves.
In posts on X, Binance said that the hack totaled around $6.3 billion, and that it froze about $3 billion in assets with the help of blockchain partners.
"User funds are safe. Binance will cover all hacking losses," Binance co-founder Yi He said on X.