Binance Founder Suggests Likely Hack as Billions in Crypto Leaves Exchange Wallets
Key Takeaways
Billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency left Binance wallets on Thursday, per onchain data and analysts.Binance acknowledged a “potential security issue” but did not share specific details.Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said it “does look like a hack.”
Billions Leave Binance in Apparent Hack
Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao wrote on X that it “does look like a hack on Binance,” but that “user funds are safe.”
“Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating,” Binance wrote. “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.”
Analysts pegged the total amount of cryptocurrency drained from Binance wallets between approximately $2.5 billion and more than $5.5 billion, though no official figures have been provided yet.
Tether CEO Paolo Andoino wrote on X that his company “froze more than 1.567 billion USDT related to a potential Binance exchange hack,” which Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said his firm had frozen “more than 800 million USDC” related to the incident
If the outflows are confirmed, the apparent Binance attack would be the largest single crypto hack of all time, beating the February 2025 theft of roughly $1.5 billion in crypto from competing exchange, Bybit. That hack was blamed on North Korean state-sponsored hackers by the FBI and other authorities.
Yuga Labs VP of Blockchain 0xQuit detailed the process the apparent hacker used to steal funds from Binance. According to the analysis, an attacker exploited a mechanism that allows Ethereum wallets to temporarily execute special instructions, using apparently unauthorized approvals to drain assets from multiple Binance wallets. He suggested that the attack may have involved tricking Binance into approving malicious transactions rather than stealing its private keys.
The price of bitcoin quickly fell following the attack, diving from a price of about $80,770 to a daily low of $78,475. It has since ticked back up above the $79,000 mark, down more than 3% over the last 24 hours.
Editor’s note: This story is breaking and will be updated with additional details.
