Binance clients pull US$4.7B after hack as crypto world studies fallout - BNN Bloomberg
Binance customers have withdrawn a net $4.72 billion from the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange since it reopened following a $6.3 billion heist, which the FBI has attributed to North Korea.
Binance froze withdrawals for more than two days after the hack, then started allowing customers to withdraw again on Sunday morning. The exchange said the net outflows amounted to around 3 per cent of the assets on its platform.
Most of the withdrawals were in the form of Tether’s USDT stablecoin. The outflow compares with about $7 billion withdrawn from Circle’s USDC stablecoin over a week after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.
Binance said it was covering the losses with company funds and had already raised $6 billion from its corporate treasury, an insurance fund and reserves set aside for security breaches.
Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users.
The company also reported seeing $2.7 billion in customer inflows since Sunday, with withdrawal volumes stabilizing after an initial spike.
North Korea-linked hackers responsible
The FBI said the attack was carried out by the North Korean state-sponsored group TraderTraitor. Researchers describe the group as highly sophisticated and say its activities help fund the country’s weapons programs.
Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said North Korea-linked hackers have stolen $7.4 billion so far in 2026, marking a step-up in the country’s crypto thefts.
About half of the stolen funds were held in stablecoins and have been frozen by issuers including Circle, which said on Monday it had frozen more than $1.1 billion in USDC.
According to Elliptic, the hackers still control around $3.28 billion, mostly in bitcoin and ether, and only a negligible amount has been cashed out of crypto and into fiat currency.
Elliptic described the laundering process as "highly complex and clearly automated."
The future of crypto won’t be decided by how much money enters the market, but by how safe that money is once it’s there.
Limited impact on confidence
Analysts and crypto experts said the fallout appeared limited so far, and there was little sign of an impact on broader financial markets despite deepening ties between crypto and mainstream finance in recent years.
Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, said it had not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal.
Some traders, like Ryan Tan, a Binance user, said they were in no hurry to withdraw their funds, as they had already kept their account fairly light since the collapse of FTX four years ago.
After the FTX collapse, I decided to hold everything on my wallet instead of leaving them on exchanges.
Data from DeFiLlama showed several crypto exchanges received notable inflows to their platforms since Binance opened withdrawals, although it was unclear what share came from users moving funds off Binance.
OKX recorded $284.87 million in inflows in the last 24 hours, followed by Gate with $93.22 million in inflows and Bybit, which saw $29.25 million in inflows.
Market reaction and next steps
Bitcoin and ether prices have recovered from their recent lows, with bitcoin trading above $77,000 and ether rebounding from a two-month low on Monday.
Stablecoin market capitalizations have fallen since Friday, suggesting some investors have shifted funds into cash or traditional assets. Binance started allowing US dollar cash withdrawals again on Monday.
A hack at a crypto exchange is bank robbery at the speed of the internet, which creates an unstable risk profile for anyone responsible for other people’s capital.
The attack’s scale could curb institutional appetite for cryptocurrencies. Spot bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows of $643 million on Friday, the largest daily withdrawal in October, while more than $1.3 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated.
Related
