Binance Founder CZ Confirms Hack – User Funds “Safe”

Key Takeaways

• CZ says outflows look like a Binance hack.
• Tether froze ~$971M, Circle about $823M.
• CZ expects user funds to be fully covered.
• Binance itself has not issued a statement.

Zhao wrote on X at about 21:16 UTC that “user funds are safe” and that “it does look like a hack on Binance,” thanking Tether and Circle for freezing roughly $971 million and $823 million respectively.

User funds are safe!

It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m).

I don’t manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered.

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 29, 2026

What CZ said, and what he didn’t

Zhao added that he no longer manages Binance.com, but that as a shareholder he expects all user funds to be fully covered. That is his expectation, not a commitment from the exchange. Binance itself had not issued an update as of about 21:20 UTC, and earlier reports noted the exchange had yet to comment on the suspected hack.

Binance has covered past losses from its Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU, an emergency reserve it set up in 2018. Whether it will draw on that fund this time has not been said.

How much is frozen, and how much isn’t

~$971M

USDT frozen by Tether

~$823M

USDC frozen by Circle

~$2.77B

total outflows first reported

Together the two freezes cover about $1.79 billion, roughly two-thirds of the $2.77 billion in outflows reported across five blockchains. Stablecoin issuers can freeze their own tokens. They cannot freeze ETH or BTC, so the roughly 195,000 ETH sent to the flagged Ethereum address and the about 16,700 BTC that left Binance wallets are outside those freezes.

Circle’s roughly $823 million figure is also larger than the single 780 million USDC transfer from Binance’s Hot Wallet 34 seen on Etherscan, which suggests more USDC was involved than that one transaction.

The next details to watch are a statement from Binance on the cause and scale of the incident, whether withdrawals stay open, and how the exchange plans to cover any losses.

This is a developing story. Last updated: October 29, 2026, 21:20 UTC.