Binance says 90% of $6.3 billion hack losses are now covered, plans to resume withdrawals Sunday
Binance says it has restored backing for 90% of assets affected by its $6.3 billion hack and is planning to resume withdrawals, subject to security checks.
Key points
- Binance says it has covered 90% of the $6.3 billion in tokens stolen from its hot wallets.
- The exchange plans to resume withdrawals by Sunday, subject to security checks.
- It is unclear how the record theft occurred or who was responsible.
Binance said Saturday it has covered up to 90% of the roughly $6.3 billion in token assets stolen from its hot wallets in a record crypto theft announced Thursday. The exchange said it will keep buying the remaining token assets through market and over-the-counter channels until coverage reaches 100% for all tokens.
Binance said the outstanding 10% consists of tokens outside its top 10 that are less liquid and may take longer to source in the required amounts. It is using its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), part of its Futures insurance fund and its corporate treasury to replenish the assets.
What Binance said
In a statement, Binance said all BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and ZEC are fully backed 100%, adding that the exchange will absorb the financial impact rather than its users.
Binance said its next milestone is resuming withdrawal services by Sunday, subject to security checks, while it continues investigating the attack. The exchange declined to give CNBC further details on the investigation, referring questions to its latest statement.
Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users.
— Binance
Cause and suspects
It still is not clear how the attack, the largest crypto theft on record, took place. Binance initially said it may have involved a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, but Co-CEO Richard Teng later said the attack involved a more complex process rather than the misuse of a single engineer's permissions.
It also is not clear who was responsible. TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence and AI investigations company, pointed to North Korean hackers as potential culprits, saying several features matched earlier North Korea-linked heists.
