One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world is actively investigating a potential security incident after multiple wallets were drained of funds thought to be in excess of US$5 billion.
“Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe,” Binance said in a 30 October post to X after rumours circulated of several wallet-draining incidents.
“Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information.
“Users should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.”
Binance added in a follow-up post that its team was “conducting security checks”.
“Withdrawals will resume as soon as the security issue is fully resolved,” the company said.
“User funds remain safe.
“We’ll keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.”
Binance’s co-founder also commented on the potential incident.
“User funds are safe!” said Changpeng Zhao on X.
“It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m).
“I don’t manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered.”
Multiple cryptocurrency media outlets are tracking the withdrawals, which were moved out of Binance wallets into an account created only the day before, on Thursday. Two Binance wallets transferred a combined 195,469 ETH, worth about US$450 million. The initial transactions also included about US$1.6 billion in Tether (USDT) and 62 other tokens.
The receiving wallet was created shortly before the transfers and moved 195,460 ETH to another fresh address within 15 minutes, while retaining about US$1.5 billion in tokens.
The activity was initiated by a wallet funded exclusively through Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixing service designed to obscure transaction origins.
This is a developing story.
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