According to CNBC, this was caused by a $6.3 billion hack, which prompted users to withdraw their funds from the platform en masse. According to the exchange’s own data, between 6:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. UTC on November 1, withdrawals totaled $4.65 billion, while deposits amounted to only $1.01 billion. As a result, the net outflow amounted to 2.1% of the company’s total assets. According to the October 28 Proof of Reserves report, total assets are estimated at $171 billion. Binance noted that after a sharp spike, user activity began to decline and stabilize, while capital inflows remain at a high level. The restoration of withdrawal functionality began in phases starting at 06:00 UTC. By 12:36 UTC, the functionality had already been fully restored for 15 networks and all major assets, while verification of the remaining segments is ongoing.
Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote on social media platform X that 98% of funds remain on the platform. He also added that the bulk of the outflow occurred in the first few hours after withdrawals were reopened.
Binance stated that it has already compensated for approximately 95% of the losses. This is even higher than the 90% reported in the previous update. The remaining 5% consists of illiquid assets, so it will take a little longer to acquire them in the necessary volume. The exchange has promised to assume all financial risks itself and not pass the losses on to customers.
Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, told CNBC that, together with law enforcement agencies, they have managed to freeze over $1.1 billion in USDC linked to this incident. The investigation is ongoing. Earlier on Friday, Circle CEO Jeremy Aller spoke about the freezing of assets totaling more than $800 million. According to the FBI, the North Korean hacker group TraderTraitor is responsible for the attack.
On Monday, Bitcoin is trading around $78,130, with daily fluctuations ranging from $77,647 to $78,922. The price has stabilized within a narrow range after falling 4.18% to $77,972 on Thursday, October 29. Looking at the price dynamics, the closing price on October 30 was $77,355; on October 31, it rose to $77,597; and on November 1, it stood at $78,402. Over the past week, the Bitcoin price has fallen by 2.5%; over the past month, it has dropped by 7.6%, although it has shown a 22.9% increase over the past three months. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a 10.9% decline, and over the past year, the asset has lost more than 29% of its value. The cryptocurrency’s market capitalization currently stands at approximately $1.57 trillion.