Binance Breach: Exchange Puts Incident Impact at $6.3 Billion

Binance said Thursday it is investigating what it called a potential security issue, with its X account putting the estimated total impact at about $6.3 billion. The exchange had not confirmed that funds were taken. Its teams were working around the clock on the matter.

The company said its initial investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Binance said it found no evidence of any wallet private key leak. Deposits and withdrawals are paused while it runs security checks, freezes funds and works with law enforcement.

About $3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far, with Binance working alongside blockchain partners to freeze affected assets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X that his company froze the equivalent of more than $1.5 billion in currency tied to a potential Binance exchange hack. Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire wrote on X that Circle had frozen more than $800 million in currency linked to the incident in coordination with law enforcement.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao wrote on X that "User funds are safe!" but added that the incident "does look like a hack on Binance." He said he does not manage Binance anymore but, as a shareholder, expects all user funds will be fully covered. A Binance spokesperson said user funds are completely safe and that its security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency.

Bitcoin fell 3.2% Thursday evening to under $79,000. Binance was founded in 2017 by Zhao, who in 2023 pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform and stepped down as CEO. President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.

Zhao was released from prison last year after being sentenced for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires U.S. financial institutions to know their customers, monitor transactions and file reports of suspicious activity. He was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for violations of that law. Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did.