Binance users pull $3.6bn as exchange reopens after record hack

Customers withdrew $3.6bn (£2.7bn) of assets from Binance as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange reopened on Sunday following what is believed to be the largest hack in history.

The firm suspended all transactions after the incident, which impacted $6.3bn worth of digital assets. Major organisations, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have accused North Korea of being responsible for the cyber-attack.

Binance said it has covered around 95% of the assets stolen in the breach, but the remaining amount may take longer to source. The company has repeatedly said it would cover all of the losses linked to the attack.

Binance said on X: “Between 06:00 and 15:30 [GMT] on November 1, we processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits, resulting in a net outflow of approximately $3.64 billion.”

There was an “initial spike” in withdrawals, which later declined and “are stabilising as expected”, it added. Sunday’s net withdrawals account for just over 2% of the $171bn of assets under its management, said Binance.

The firm said last week that it has reserved more than $6.3bn in funds to deal with the fallout of the attack. Binance also said withdrawals of more than two dozen major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have resumed, and that more services will resume in phases once security checks are completed.

Funds linked to the Binance hack continue to be laundered, according to Alex Zebrick, a senior investigator at Chainalysis who has been working with the firm and governments to get the stolen money back.

“We continue to see funds being laundered quite actively,” he told the BBC’s Today Programme. “The attackers are layering these funds across many thousands of addresses, across thousands of deposits,” he added.