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Binance Faces Historic Crypto Hack as Emergency Response and Market Fallout Unfold

Binance Faces Historic Crypto Hack as Emergency Response and Market Fallout Unfold

Binance said issuers froze billions in USDT and USDC, while its SAFU fund holds around $1 billion to cover potential losses.

Written by Rahul Dhingra, Edited by Rohan Pal | Updated: 30 October 2026 17:53 IST

Binance Faces Historic Crypto Hack as Emergency Response and Market Fallout Unfold

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Kanchanara

Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users holds around $1 billion in Bitcoin to help cover emergency losses

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Highlights

Binance estimated losses at approximately $6.3 billion
Tether and Circle froze billions in stablecoins
Binance pledged to cover losses using SAFU and company funds

On Thursday, Binance, which is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, was hacked for more than $6 billion (roughly Rs. 56,970 crore), making it the biggest ever cryptocurrency theft in history. Binance estimates the value of the total losses due to the attack at around $6.3 billion (roughly Rs. 59,818.50 crore). According to Binance, which updated its statement on Friday evening, about $3 billion (roughly Rs. 28,485 crore) worth of cryptoassets have been frozen, including $2.3 billion (roughly Rs. 21,838.50 crore) worth of USDT and USDC stablecoins. This implies that the token issuers have blocked any transactions from the blockchain addresses in question.

Binance Investigates Compromised Engineer Laptop as Stablecoin Issuers Freeze Funds

As per the statement, the primary cause behind this hack could be that the laptop of an engineer has become vulnerable to hacking. The wallets in possession of the hacker contained more than $5.7 billion (roughly Rs. 54,121.50 crore) in various cryptos stolen from Binance, as revealed by Arkham, including almost $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 14,242.50 crore) in Bitcoin and around $900 million (roughly Rs. 8,545.50 crore) in Ether worth $2,220 (roughly Rs. 2.1 lakh). The wallets had approximately $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 14,242.50 crore) in USDT and over $800 million (roughly Rs. 7,596 crore) in USDC stablecoins. According to blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, it is updating its estimate of the amount stolen, which stands at approximately $5.9 billion (roughly Rs. 56,005.50 crore).

The exchange added, “Binance's initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak.” In an X post, Binance's Co-CEO Yi He stated that the platform is going to pay for “all hacking losses.” The exchange has frozen all withdrawals until the security problem is solved.

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Blockchain security professionals, ZachXBT, an investigator, and intelligence firms Blockaid and TRM Labs claimed that North Korea was responsible for the hack. "This is the biggest crypto hack in history,” said Ido Ben-Natan, co-founder and CEO of crypto security firm Blockaid.

CZ, founder of Binance, also responded to this matter, stating, “User funds are safe.” “It does look like a hack on Binance … I don't manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered,” he added.

Bitcoin, Ether and BNB Fall as Attacker Moves Funds Through DeFi Platforms

The cryptocurrency markets reacted negatively to the incident. Bitcoin's price fell by 4.8 percent to below $78,000 (roughly Rs. 73.9 lakh), while Ether (ETH was down 5.7 percent. BNB, the token of the Binance-affiliated BNB Chain, was down by 8 percent, and AAVE was down 11 percent.

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The wallet associated with the attack on Binance is making transactions on the decentralised exchange Uniswap (UNI), based on the blockchain analysis done by Arkham. The attacker managed to borrow a minimum of 20,000 wrapped ether (WETH) valued at about $44 million (roughly Rs. 417.78 crore) from the decentralised loan platform Aave as collateral with the stolen USDT tokens.

Both of the executives of Tether and Circle, who issue their stablecoins, are trying to trace the incident. According to Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoino, the company managed to freeze about $1.57 billion USDT tokens, and according to Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, USDC tokens worth more than $800 million (roughly Rs. 7,596 crore) have been frozen.

In case of any major crypto hack, the attackers attempt to exchange the assets that could be frozen by issuers such as centralised stablecoins, namely USDC and USDT, for the cryptocurrency that has no control of its centralised issuer. It is possible to conduct transactions through decentralised exchanges and lenders, such as Uniswap and Aave, through which it is possible to conduct transactions straight from the wallet without using a centralised exchange to process the transaction. Transfers, nevertheless, do not prove that the money has become impossible to freeze or recover.

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Before the attack, Binance had about $144 billion (roughly Rs. 13,67,280 crore) worth of assets on its platform, based on DefiLlama data. The hacked amount would be around 4 percent of that. The company has some buffer to compensate for some of the losses. The Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), which was launched in 2018 to safeguard users' money in case of security attacks and other emergencies, contains about $1 billion (roughly Rs. 9,495 crore) in Bitcoin. According to an earlier statement by Binance, it would compensate for all losses through the use of the SAFU fund and the company's own money, stressing that “user funds are safe.”

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.

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Further reading: binance hack, Crypto Frauds, Crypto Scams

Rahul Dhingra

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Rahul Dhingra is a crypto writer at Gadgets 360, where he covers the exciting world of Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Defi and Web3. Before joining Gadgets 360, he worked as a content specialist for a European-based Crypto Exchange. Rahul loves storytelling, not just through the written word but also through the visual medium. Beyond his professional life, Rahul is a sports fanatic. Whether it’s cricket or football, his passion for the game is contagious. More