Binance Suspends Withdrawals After Billions in Crypto Stolen
Binance suspended withdrawals and investigated a security breach that may have resulted in the theft of up to $6 billion in digital assets.
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance suspended withdrawals across multiple networks on Thursday following a security breach that may have resulted in the theft of billions of dollars. While the company stated that user funds are safe, founder and largest shareholder Changpeng Zhao noted the incident "looked like a hack" and indicated that funds would be fully covered.
Loss estimates vary significantly. Some observers reported at least $2 billion drained from hot wallets, while data provider Arkham Intelligence linked nearly $6 billion in digital assets across 55 wallet addresses to the exploit. In response, stablecoin issuers Tether Limited and Circle Internet Group froze approximately $1.57 billion and $800 million respectively to prevent the movement of stolen assets. Co-founder Yi He also noted that Ripple helped halt the movement of an additional $200 million.
The security incident triggered a broader market decline, causing Bitcoin to fall below $80,000 alongside price drops for Ether and Solana. In a separate but concurrent event, the prediction market Polymarket briefly halted trading and withdrawals after a third-party software compromise via DebugBear led to the theft of approximately $2 million in user funds.
