Binance is investigating a suspected hack after billions of dollars left its hot wallets in about 40 minutes on Thursday afternoon. Blockchain security firm Blockaid put the suspicious transfers at roughly 3.3 billion dollars across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche, including about 2.5 billion dollars from the wallets known as Binance 14 and Binance 16 and about 780 million dollars of USDC from a Binance smart account, Cointelegraph reported. The outflows ran from 20:24 to 21:04 UTC, the receiving addresses were newly created, and funds were pushed onward within minutes, according to Crypto Briefing. Blockchain researcher Spreek first flagged the activity, reporting that assets from a Binance-linked Ethereum wallet had moved to a new address through a contract call funded via Tornado Cash, and that wallets connected to the transfers had begun selling USDT on decentralized exchanges.
Changpeng Zhao, the exchange’s founder and former chief executive, addressed the outflows on X at about 21:15 UTC. “User funds are safe! It does look like a hack on Binance,” he wrote, crediting Tether and Circle with quick freezes and adding that he no longer manages Binance but, as a shareholder, expects all user funds to be fully covered. Binance itself has confirmed less. “Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating,” the company said, warning users to distrust unofficial links and messages. A spokesperson told Cointelegraph the exchange had not confirmed any impact on user funds.
The stablecoin issuers moved against the receiving wallets. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen more than 1.567 billion dollars of USDT linked to the suspected exploit, and Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said Circle had frozen more than 800 million dollars of USDC in coordination with law enforcement. Together the freezes exceed 2.3 billion dollars. Ether and other tokens have no equivalent freeze mechanism, which is why the estimates of what left the exchange, from about 2.5 billion to 3.3 billion dollars, are not a measure of the final loss. Arkham Intelligence labeled a set of wallets “binance-hacker-1029” and put their holdings at about 5.84 billion dollars; Cointelegraph notes that figure is the wallets’ reported holdings, not a confirmed estimate of stolen funds.
Crypto prices fell as the reports spread. Bitcoin dropped below 80,000 dollars and ether below 2,300 dollars, BNB fell by as much as 6 percent, and roughly 600 million dollars of leveraged positions were liquidated within an hour, according to Coinglass data reported by FXStreet and Crypto Briefing, which put liquidations at 627.7 million dollars, mostly long positions.
What is not yet known is how the transfers were authorized, whether any customer balances were touched, and how much of the flagged outflow Binance will ultimately count as stolen. The exchange’s investigation, and whether the frozen stablecoins are returned, will settle those questions.