Binance Says a Security Incident Had About $6.3 Billion in Impact, With $3 Billion Frozen and Withdrawals Suspended
Fox Business relays the company's statements: it will cover all losses, and early findings point to a compromised engineer's laptop. Bitcoin fell about 2% to a six-week low. The company has not formally called it a hack.
The world's largest crypto exchange says a security incident cost an estimated $6.3 billion, and it has paused deposits and withdrawals, Fox Business reports.
The statement. A Binance spokesperson told Fox Business: "User funds remain safe. As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our security teams conduct checks, secure wallet infrastructure, and trace affected assets." The company said "Users will not bear the financial impact of this incident" and "Binance will cover all losses," through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company funds. It promised an updated Proof of Reserves once the incident is resolved.
The cause. Binance said its initial findings suggest a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer may have let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals. It said it found no evidence that wallet private keys were compromised. Founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the exchange, wrote that "It does look like a hack on Binance." The company has not officially called it one.
The freeze. Tether said it froze nearly $1.57 billion tied to the incident, and Circle more than $800 million, according to Reuters as cited by Fox. Ripple froze roughly $200 million. Binance says about $3 billion is frozen in total.
The market. Bitcoin fell about 2% to a six-week low of $77,646 in early Asian trading Friday, Reuters reported. Ether dropped about 2% to $2,238.76, and BNB fell more than 8% over 24 hours to $694, per CoinGecko data.
Note for readers: every figure here is Binance's or Reuters's as relayed by Fox Business, and the investigation is ongoing. We could not confirm the impact estimate independently.