Binance says roughly $6.3 billion affected in security incident, freezes some funds
Deposits and withdrawals are paused while the exchange works with law enforcement, and stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle said they froze assets related to the incident.
By Paula Delgado ·
Binance said late Thursday that an investigation into a reported security issue put the estimated total impact at more than $6 billion. The company wrote on its X account that the figure sat at around $6.3 billion. The exchange did not confirm that funds had been stolen, and said it would not release further technical details until its review is complete.
Binance said its initial investigation suggests the incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. That access, the company wrote, let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. The exchange also said it found no evidence of a wallet private key leak.
The company said it worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets and that roughly $3 billion has been frozen on-chain. Deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while Binance runs security checks, freezes funds and works with law enforcement. A Binance spokesperson said in a statement that user funds are completely safe.
Stablecoin providers acted on their own. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino wrote on X that his company froze more than $1.5 billion in currency related to a potential Binance exchange hack. Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said on X that Circle froze more than $800 million in currency tied to the incident, in coordination with law enforcement.
Changpeng Zhao, who founded Binance in 2017 and stepped down as chief executive in 2023, posted about the incident Thursday. He wrote that user funds are safe but that it does look like a hack on Binance. Zhao added that he does not manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder he expects all user funds will be fully covered.
Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform. He was sentenced for violating the Bank Secrecy Act and released from prison last year. President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.
The price of bitcoin fell 3.2% Thursday evening to under $79,000.
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