$2.8B Pours Out Of Binance Wallets In One Night In Suspected Hack
About $2.8 billion in crypto poured out of Binance hot wallets into a single new address on Thursday, in what the world’s biggest crypto exchange is treating as a possible hack.
Key Takeaways
- A Binance hot wallet sent about 167,464 ETH, 1.6 billion USDT and more than 60 other tokens to a new address in one transaction
- In the Binance hack, a second Binance wallet sent 780 million USDC to the same address 17 minutes later
- Binance co-founder Yi He said the exchange is investigating the Binance hack and that user funds are safe
- Tether and Circle reportedly froze large amounts of the stolen stablecoins, and Bitcoin slipped below $78,500
What Happened On Chain
At 20:24 UTC on Oct. 29, the Binance wallet labeled “Binance 14” sent about 167,464 ETH, roughly 1.6 billion USDT and more than 60 other tokens to a brand new address in a single transaction, Etherscan records show. Seventeen minutes later, a second Binance hot wallet sent 780 million USDC to the same address.
A hot wallet is the internet-connected wallet an exchange uses to pay out customer withdrawals. Most of an exchange’s coins sit offline in cold storage, which is much harder to attack.
Totals are still moving. Market news account Walter Bloomberg put the outflows at $2.77 billion across five blockchains, while SolanaFloor estimated close to $3 billion. On-chain investigator Spreek flagged the transfer early and said the address that triggered it was funded through Tornado Cash, a privacy tool often used to hide stolen money. That claim has not been independently confirmed.
What Binance Says
Binance co-founder Yi He said the exchange is “aware of reports regarding a potential security issue” and is actively investigating. She warned users to ignore unofficial links and messages asking for account details and said user funds are safe.
Founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the exchange, confirmed a hack had taken place and said that, as a shareholder, he expects users to be fully compensated, the same outlet reported. Binance has not yet said how the wallets were breached.
Stablecoin Issuers Step In
Because more than $2.3 billion of the haul was in stablecoins, their issuers can block it. Tether reportedly froze about $971 million in USDT and Circle about $823 million in USDC, though neither company’s own statement could be confirmed at the time of writing. If those freezes hold, a large share of the money cannot be moved or cashed out.
The ETH and other tokens cannot be frozen the same way, which is why investigators will be watching where the attacker sends them next.
Market Reaction
In the Binance hack, Bitcoin fell below $78,500 as the reports spread, and Binance’s own BNB token dropped as much as 9%. If confirmed, the theft would be one of the largest in crypto history, larger than the roughly $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025.
Binance has covered past losses from its SAFU emergency fund, set up after a $40 million hack in 2019.
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