Binance Drained of $5.5 Billion in Suspected Hack, Tether and Circle Freeze $1.8 Billion
At least $5.57 billion left Binance-linked wallets across three blockchains on Thursday in what appears to be a major security breach.
The tally shows $3.51 billion moved on Ethereum, $1.44 billion in 18,270 Bitcoin, and $630 million on Tron. The first Ethereum transaction at 20:24 UTC sent 167,464 ETH plus 63 token transfers to a new address, including 1.615 billion USDT. Three minutes earlier, an address funded through Tornado Cash submitted a delegation for a Binance hot wallet using EIP-7702, an Ethereum feature that allows ordinary wallets to execute smart-contract code.
Stablecoin issuers act
Tether froze 975.1 million USDT and Circle froze 823 million USDC in the main receiving wallet, totaling about $1.8 billion. Both issuers can block specific addresses from moving their tokens, though the attacker is moving funds rapidly.
Market impact
Bitcoin fell below $79,000, dropping about 2.6% in 24 hours. Binance's own token, BNB, fell about 7% to roughly $699. Meanwhile, Monero, a privacy coin, rose about 6% to $637, echoing its jump after a $333 million Bitcoin theft in April 2025.
Historical context
Binance lost 7,000 Bitcoin, about $40 million, in a 2019 hack. The current $5.57 billion tally would be more than triple the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit heist in February 2025, which was previously the largest crypto hack on record.
Related
