Binance Reopens After Hack as Customers Drain $3.64bn

Binance resumed trading on Sunday, and customers withdrew a net $3.64 billion of assets from the platform in the first hours of operation. The exchange had suspended all transactions earlier in the week after a cyberattack compromised $6.3 billion worth of digital assets. This incident stands as the largest hack in history.

The company stated that it has recovered approximately 95% of the stolen funds. Binance said it would cover the entire loss, though it noted that sourcing the remaining amount might take longer. The firm replaced customer assets using its corporate treasury, futures insurance, and emergency reserve funds. Last week, the exchange revealed that early checks suggested the attack began with a compromised laptop belonging to an engineer. That device allowed hackers to execute unauthorized transactions.

Major organizations, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, have accused North Korea of orchestrating the attack. The FBI identified the perpetrators as TraderTraitor, a cybercrime group also known as the Lazarus Group. This group stole $1.5 billion from the Bybit exchange in 2025. On Saturday, the FBI released a list of cryptocurrency wallet addresses linked to the group. It urged industry partners to block transactions involving those addresses to help recover the funds.

Binance reported processing $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits between 06:00 and 15:30 GMT on November 1. The company described an initial spike in withdrawals that later declined. It added that outflows are stabilizing as expected. Withdrawals for more than two dozen major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, have resumed. Additional services will return in phases once security checks are completed. The US-facing platform for Binance said it was not affected by the breach.

The exchange scrambled to urge cryptocurrency issuers to freeze affected assets. Binance has reserved more than $6.34 billion in funds to manage the fallout. The firm is privately held, but it reported holding more than $160 billion in assets in custody in 2024. The $3.64 billion in withdrawals represents a small fraction of the total value held by the platform. Binance was founded in China and has hundreds of millions of registered users globally.