Binance says it has covered 90% of $6.3B hack losses
Binance says it has covered 90% of losses from a $6.3 billion security incident, with the remaining assets still being sourced and withdrawals due Sunday.
Crypto Bulletin Newsroom 2 min read
Binance said Saturday it had covered 90% of the losses from a security incident it estimates at $6.3 billion, and expects to reopen withdrawals Sunday. In its latest recovery update, the exchange said it would absorb the financial impact rather than pass it to users.
How did Binance say the incident happened?
Binance’s initial investigation suggested an attacker may have used a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop to access a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions, according to its incident update. The company said it had found no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked.
The Associated Press reported that Binance put the incident’s estimated impact at about $6.3 billion and said roughly $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen on-chain. Binance has not published a technical post-mortem; its initial update said it would share one after the investigation and verification of the facts were complete.
What remains before Binance restores withdrawals?
Binance said the remaining 10% to be covered consists of tokens outside the ten it listed as fully backed: BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and ZEC. It said those remaining assets are less liquid and it is sourcing them through market and over-the-counter purchases, with help from industry partners.
The exchange said it had set aside more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the losses. Its recovery update says the replenishment uses part of its Secure Asset Fund for Users, a portion of its futures insurance fund and corporate treasury funds. Binance said it remains on track to reopen withdrawals Sunday, Nov. 1, and will provide another update when details are confirmed.
Sources
- latest recovery update — binance.com
- incident update — binance.com