Billions are disappearing from Binance wallets. The stock exchange does not confirm the hack

On Thursday evening, billions of dollars worth of assets left Binance’s hot wallets. Decrypt counted at least $5.57 billion across Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron.

Binance has not confirmed the hack. It writes about a “potential security issue” and assures that users’ funds are completely safe.

Tether froze over $1.567 billion in USDT, and Circle froze over $800 million in USDC. The total is over USD 2.3 billion.

On Thursday at 9:24 p.m. Polish time, billions of dollars began to disappear from Binance wallets. The funds were sent to new addresses. The stock exchange is investigating the matter, but as of 10:50 p.m. it had not confirmed that it was an attack. The condition described in the text concerns this hour.

What can be seen in the blockchain

Decrypt counted at least $5.57 billion: $3.51 billion in Ethereum, $1.44 billion in Bitcoin (18,270 BTC), and $0.63 billion in Tron. Other lists give less because they cover fewer networks or count at a different time. These are flows from the exchange’s portfolios, not confirmed customer losses.

According to the analysis described by Decrypt, an address powered by the Tornado Cash mixer hijacked the rights to a hot Binance Ethereum wallet. To do this, he used the EIP-7702 function, which allows a regular wallet to execute smart contract code. Three minutes later, 167,464 ETH and 63 types of tokens came out of the wallet. It is not known how someone obtained the required signature.

What Binance and the former head of the exchange say

Binance wrote on X that its teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are investigating them. She added that user funds are completely safe. She did not confirm the break-in or losses.

Exchange founder Changpeng Zhao wrote that it looked like a hack and that users’ funds were safe. CZ no longer manages Binance.com, so this is his assessment and not the exchange’s commitment.

Tether and Circle have frozen stablecoins

Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino said that the company had frozen over $1.567 billion in USDT. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire announced the freezing of over $800 million in USDC.

Freezing means that these tokens cannot be transferred further. It doesn’t mean they’ve returned to Binance or their customers. A separate procedure is needed for this.

CZ recently argued that the stock exchange is safer

At the beginning of August, CZ wrote on X that statistically it is safer to hold coins on the exchange than on your own. He was responding to analyst Willy Woo’s report, according to which approximately 1.57 million BTC was lost in self-storage, and approximately 1.51 million BTC on exchanges. He added that stock exchange hacks are easier to count because they usually reach the media.

These numbers are not just about burglaries. On the self-storage side, there are also lost keys, damaged drives, and coins that have been lying around untouched since the early days of bitcoin.

Thursday’s flows do not resolve this dispute. Binance has not confirmed the hack and assures that customer funds are safe, and in 2019 it covered the theft of approximately PLN 7,000 from the SAFU fund. BTC. However, they show the other side of the account: when something happens to the exchange’s wallet, it affects all its clients at once.

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What does this mean to you

If you hold funds on Binance, it is not yet known whether this applies to you. The exchange ensures that customer funds are safe, but did not say whether withdrawals and deposits continue to operate unchanged. Don’t make decisions under pressure.

Look for announcements only in the official application and on the stock exchange website. Don’t click on links to supposed refunds or money protection from messages and comments. In such events, fraudsters often impersonate technical support. Don’t share your password, authenticator code, or recovery phrase with anyone.

Such events remind us that it is not profitable to keep all funds in one place. The safest way to store most crypto assets is in your wallet, and from this guide you will learn which cryptocurrency wallet to choose.

What is not known yet

It is unknown who controls the receiving addresses, how they obtained the signature and what amount ultimately came out of Binance’s control. There is no information on the status of withdrawals or what will happen to the frozen stablecoins. If the flows turn out to be theft, it would be the largest exchange hack in history, larger than Bybit’s approximately $1.5 billion in February 2025.