Binance Probes Billions in Hot-Wallet Outflows, Says Funds Are Safe

Binance said Thursday its security teams are "actively investigating" after wallets tied to the exchange sent billions of dollars in crypto to a single new address, starting around 4:24 p.m. ET.

The exchange first said at 5:16 p.m. that it had "not confirmed any impact to user funds." Thirteen minutes later it edited that post to say "User funds are completely safe." It has not called the event a hack.

Update, 7:50 p.m. ET: Binance has since paused withdrawals on multiple networks, TechCrunch reported. It says $2.54 billion is frozen, with law enforcement helping. Trackers Lookonchain and Arkham allege $5.7 billion to $5.8 billion was taken. Binance has not confirmed a loss or called it a hack.

What moved

Unchained counted about $3.52 billion leaving on Ethereum alone between 4:24 and 5:04 p.m. ET, including 197,170 ETH, 1.68 billion USDT and 823 million USDC, per its report. That count leaves out other chains, so the total may be higher. Security firm Blockaid said the transfers "look consistent with unauthorized movement" but that it "cannot yet rule out an internal treasury or operational sweep."

How it appears to work

A hot wallet is the internet-connected account an exchange uses to pay out withdrawals. Unchained reported that an address partly funded through the mixer Tornado Cash set up an EIP-7702 delegation on one of those wallets at 4:20 p.m. That Ethereum feature lets an ordinary wallet run a smart contract's code. Whoever controls the code can move the funds. How the delegation was signed is not yet known.

Freezes and pledges

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than 1.567 billion USDT "related to a potential Binance exchange hack." Former CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote that it "does look like a hack" and that, as a shareholder, he expects user funds "will be fully covered." The outflows were still running at 5:44 p.m., Unchained said.

For scale, the FBI tied a $1.5 billion theft from Bybit in February 2025 to North Korea. No one has named a culprit here. BNB traded near $707 at 6:01 p.m. ET, down 6.6% in 24 hours, per CoinGecko.

In our opinion: The freezes bought time, but frozen tokens are not returned tokens. Binance has said funds are safe without saying what happened. The next statement needs a cause, a final number and who pays.