Binance investigating hack as suspicious outflows reach up to $5.8 billion
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, appears to have suffered a major hack.Onchain data flagged by analyst Spreek shows about $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to the unlabeled wallet, with nearly $900 million subsequently moved across other wallets. Conor Grogan, a senior director and product leader at Coinbase, says the amount is up to $5.8 billion.While Binance has not publicly confirmed a breach, co-founder and Chief Customer Service Officer Yi He said the firm is actively investigating."We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating." He wrote in a post on X. "Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information."Later Thursday night, He said users' funds are safe and that Binance will cover all hacking-related losses."Deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement," she wrote on X. "We will share a full post-mortem once the investigation is complete."Former CEO Changpeng Zhao said user funds are safe and that he expects them to be fully covered, while crediting Tether and Circle for quickly freezing the funds."I don't manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered," Zhao wrote on X.Onchain data showed Tether and Circle froze a combined $1.79 billion in USDT and USDC held in a wallet that received billions of dollars in transfers from Binance hot wallets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the stablecoin firm froze more than 1.567 billion USDT, while Circle's Jeremy Allaire said it has frozen more than 800 million USDC associated with the incident."Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority," Ardoino said. "Stay safe everyone."Blockaid said it is investigating approximately $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance hot wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche.Aave froze lending markets to prevent the Binance hacker from borrowing, onchain data shows. Aave said its contracts are unaffected, and positions remain overcollateralized."As a precaution, all DAO-operated markets across V3 and V4 have been frozen. The freeze pauses new deposits and borrows, and users can still withdraw and repay their existing positions," the lending protocol said on X. "We will monitor the situation and unfreeze as soon as possible."The BNB token was down more than 5.5% at publication time.For its part, Binance.US was not affected by the reported incident. "We are a separate, independent platform, and customer funds and services are secure and operating normally," the firm said. "Rest assured, all user funds are safe."This story has been updated with additional reporting and comments from Aave, Binance.US, and Yi He.