Binance Halts Withdrawals After What Could Be the Largest Hack in Crypto History

TL;DR:

• Cryptocurrency exchange Binance temporarily paused withdrawals across multiple networks after recording unauthorized outflows estimated between $3.3 billion and $5.8 billion from its hot wallets.
• Centralized issuers froze more than $2.6 billion in assets linked to the incident, divided among $1.567 billion in USDT, $800 million in USDC, and $200 million in RLUSD.
• Derivatives market liquidations exceeded $627 million within one hour, with Binance accounting for more than 50% of the recorded forced sales.

Binance fell victim this Thursday, October 29, to what multiple industry reports are calling the largest hack recorded to date. Following the incident, the exchange indefinitely halted withdrawals.

Our team is conducting security checks. Withdrawals will resume as soon as the security issue is fully resolved.

User funds remain safe.

We’ll keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.

— Binance (@binance) October 29, 2026

At 22:15 UTC, it confirmed the suspension via a post on its official X account. In its statement, the technical team stated that it is conducting security reviews and that withdrawals will resume as soon as the issue is fully resolved, reiterating that user funds remain safe. The corporate stance shifted during the day: the company transitioned from describing the event as a “potential security issue” to formally categorizing it as “the security issue.” At 23:06 UTC, the platform expanded technical restrictions to its Binance Alpha product.

Ross O’Leary, a spokesperson for Binance, told international media that the suspension is a precautionary measure in response to a security incident. In parallel, co-founder Changpeng Zhao publicly declared that, in his role as a shareholder, he expects that user funds will be covered in full.

The figures surrounding the attack reflect unprecedented movements across the platform’s infrastructure. Reports from on-chain analytics firms and market records place cumulative suspicious transfers between $3.550 billion and $5.800 billion originating from internet-connected addresses (hot wallets). Other industry sources indicate that the stolen funds amount to $5.500 billion.

DeFi Movement and Stablecoin Freezes

The technical method involved exploiting transactions under the EIP-7702 standard on the Ethereum network. Blockchain explorer records show that an address funded via Tornado Cash managed to delegate contracts on a Binance hot wallet, executing continuous withdrawals without requiring individual manual signatures for each transaction.

To protect the capital before it could be blacklisted, the attacker turned to decentralized protocols. Transaction data revealed that the perpetrator used Uniswap to convert substantial amounts of tokenized fiat currency into Ether. Additionally, they deposited $60 million in USDT as collateral into Aave to borrow approximately 19,762 ETH, avoiding the immediate liquidation of freezable tokens.

The response from stablecoin issuing companies limited the scope of the exploit. Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, confirmed the freezing of more than 1.567 billion USDT spread across suspect wallets. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, reported the immobilization of more than 800 million USDC in direct coordination with law enforcement agencies. He Yi, co-CEO of Binance, also reported that Ripple cooperated in freezing $200 million in assets linked to its RLUSD stablecoin, with which the attacker attempted to swap $36 million for Ether.

The scale of the exploit surpasses previous corporate incident records. According to documented market history, the largest previously reported exploit belonged to Bybit in February 2025, when it suffered a loss of $1.5 billion.

The operational impact caused immediate fluctuations in order books. Figures from the Coinglass platform reveal that $627.7 million in liquidations occurred in derivatives markets within the sixty-minute window following the first alerts. Of that amount, $606.6 million corresponded to long contracts. Binance accounted for $344.8 million of the total forced liquidation volume during that same period. In market quotes, BNB dropped to $702.97, posting a 6.9% daily decline, while Bitcoin fell to $78,840.

Decentralized finance protocols activated safeguards to contain contagion risk. Platforms like Aave paused lending markets to block the inflow of compromised funds, and Kamino suspended transactions across selected markets.

The exchange’s operational restoration remains contingent upon the completion of internal cryptographic key audits and the publication of an official report quantifying the final net balance of unrecovered assets.