Binance Is Back Online After a $6.3 Billion Heist — and Says the Outflows Are Stabilising
Customers pulled $3.64 billion as the world's biggest crypto exchange resumed service, Reuters reported Monday, while the exchange says it has covered 95 percent of what was stolen in what analysts call possibly the biggest financial robbery ever.
The world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange is back online, and its first job is persuading its own customers to stay. Binance customers pulled $3.64 billion — 2.1 percent of its assets — as the exchange resumed service after a security breach linked to North Korea saw $6.3 billion stolen from the platform last week, Reuters reported on Monday.
The exchange moved to reassure investors that the worst of the run was over: withdrawals were stabilising after an initial spike, deposit volumes had remained 'substantial,' and Binance said it had now covered 95 percent of the assets stolen in the heist. Withdrawals are returning in stages — the first phase covers 15 tokens, including bitcoin, ether, some USDC and USDT stablecoins and dogecoin — prioritised by user demand, the company said. One outside count was larger than the exchange's: crypto analytics platform DefiLlama put outflows at $5.81 billion, a figure Binance did not immediately answer.
Binance says it will bear the cost itself. On Sunday it said it had covered $6 billion of the stolen cryptocurrency by using company money to buy replacement tokens, and it has set aside around $6.34 billion to cover the losses, drawn from its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users, its Futures Insurance Fund and its corporate treasury. Co-CEO Yi He said the exchange would use 50 percent of its SAFU funds and replenish the fund to about $1 billion. The exchange, founded in China, counts 335 million registered users globally and said it held $171 billion in total assets under management as of October 28.
The scale is the story. Analysts say the Binance theft could be the biggest financial robbery ever, against a backdrop of $2.9 billion stolen across nearly 150 crypto incidents last year, according to researchers at TRM Labs. The market, at least, steadied over the weekend: bitcoin recovered slightly to trade above $78,000 on Monday after a six-week low on Friday, and ether came off a two-month low to $2,287. President Donald Trump added a note of doubt about the attribution on Saturday, saying it remained unclear whether North Korea was involved: 'We don't know if it's North Korea — but if it is, we'll talk to North Korea about it,' he said, in remarks Reuters reported.
