Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, reported on Thursday night a security incident with an estimated $6.3 billion impact and temporarily suspended all deposits and withdrawals while pledging to cover every user loss.
The company said user funds remain safe and that roughly $3 billion in affected assets has already been frozen on-chain.
According to Binance’s official support announcement and statements on X, the initial investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop.
“We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak,” the exchange stated, adding that the attacker gained access to a service container and submitted unauthorized withdrawals.
“Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. User funds are safe,” the company said in its update.
It plans to publish an updated Proof of Reserves after remediation and has revoked the affected address authorization while working with law enforcement and blockchain partners.
Stablecoin issuers moved fast. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the firm froze more than $1.57 billion in USDT, while Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed freezing over $800 million in USDC. These actions helped push the verified on-chain freeze total near $3 billion. Chainalysis estimated at least $5.9 billion was stolen across multiple chains.
Bitcoin fell more than 3% to a six-week low near $76,500–$77,000, with Ether and other major tokens also declining. Crypto-related stocks dropped in extended trading, and liquidations of leveraged longs exceeded several hundred million dollars. Former CEO Changpeng Zhao said on X, “It does look like a hack,” while expecting full user coverage as a shareholder.
The incident exceeds the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of 2025 and would rank among the largest crypto thefts on record if the figure holds.
Binance.US said its platform was unaffected. The exchange urged users to rely only on official channels and continues tracing remaining funds with law enforcement.
Meanwhile, no timeline has been given for resuming deposits and withdrawals.
