Binance sees net withdrawals of US$3.6 billion after record hack and resumes operations
Customers withdrew their net balance on Sunday (1st), after an attack that the FBI and other organizations attribute to North Korea. Exchange says it has covered about 95% of stolen assets.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM BBC BUSINESS · 2 MIN
Binance customers withdrew a net balance of around US$3.6 billion on Sunday (1st), when the platform resumed operations after a record hacker attack the previous week. According to BBC Business, the value corresponds to the difference between withdrawals and deposits, and the BBC itself describes the episode as the biggest hack in history.
Binance had suspended all transactions following the incident, which affected $6.3 billion worth of digital assets, according to the BBC. The Gazeta treats the same value as a loss, while the BBC only talks about impacted assets, and the difference changes the reading of the size of the damage. The FBI and other organizations point to North Korea as responsible. According to Binance, the attack may have started with an engineer's compromised laptop, and the hackers carried out unauthorized transactions. Times Brasil reported that withdrawals had been temporarily suspended.
The detailed numbers came from Estadão. Between Sunday morning and early afternoon, net outflows totaled around US$3.64 billion, with withdrawals of US$4.649 billion and deposits of US$1.01 billion. The net balance is equivalent to 2.1% of assets under management. According to Binance on X, the initial peak of withdrawals fell and then stabilized, and the company claims that market conditions remain stable, with deposits considered substantial.
The recovery is gradual. Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) withdrawals were released first, and other services return in phases, after security checks. According to Estadão, the team is still testing networks and remaining assets, and the next phase has no defined date. Binance says it has covered around 95% of the stolen assets, says the remainder may take longer and promises to cover all losses.
The scope of the case is also measured by the size of the company. In 2024, Binance had more than US$160 billion in custody, according to the BBC, and the exchange, founded in China, has hundreds of millions of users. The global version, Binance.com, was affected, while the US-facing platform says it was not affected.
What changes for the investor
For those who invest and operate, the case does not provide a price signal, and this article does not predict the behavior of any asset. What it highlights is the risk of concentrated custody: when a platform stores billions in assets, a single incident can halt withdrawals and force the customer to wait for security checks. The net outflow equivalent to 2.1% of assets under management indicates that the volume withdrawn was small compared to the total, but the medium-term effect will depend on whether Binance fulfills the coverage promise and how the rest of the services are reactivated. It is worth monitoring official announcements and possible changes to security and custody rules.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
