Binance had paused withdrawals after hackers stole $6.3 billion from its cryptocurrency exchange late Thursday (Oct. 29). PYMNTS reported Friday that this was the biggest crypto theft ever.
Announcing the first phase of restoration of withdrawals in its Sunday post on X, Binance said: “After an initial spike, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilizing as expected, while deposit volumes have remained substantial.”
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During that initial 6½-hour period, Binance processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits. The net outflow of about $3.64 billion amounted to 2.1% of the company’s $171 billion in total assets under management, Binance said in the post.
Binance said in an earlier security incident update on its website that it would restore withdrawals in phases, with the first phase beginning between 06:00 and 09:00 UTC (1 a.m. to 4 a.m. EST) Sunday. The company said that each phase would include different groups of networks and assets and that it would share updates through its X channel. It also shared the information on a Deposit & Withdrawal Status page on its website.
“Since the incident, our teams have taken precautionary measures to safeguard the platform, conducted security assessments, and worked to verify the readiness of affected services,” Binance said in the update. “We aim to restore withdrawals progressively as we complete security and readiness checks. Deposit services remain open and are not affected by the incident.”
Binance also reiterated its earlier statements that users’ funds remain safe and that the company will absorb the financial impact of the losses.
“Binance has now covered approximately 95% of the impacted amount, up from 90% in our prior update,” the company said in the update. “The outstanding 5% are tokens outside the top ten [listed in the post], and are less liquid in the market and take longer time to source at the required scale.”
The FBI said in a Saturday (Oct. 31) press release that North Korea’s illicit cybercrime and virtual asset theft activities dubbed “TraderTraitor” were responsible for the theft from Binance. The FBI shared a list of addresses that hold or have held assets from the theft, and it asked private sector entities to block transactions tied to those addresses.
Binance said in a post on X: “We sincerely thank [FBI Cyber] for their strong support during this challenging time.”
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