Binance says 90% of stolen assets replaced, aims to resume withdrawals Sunday

Binance replaces most of the $6.3 billion taken in its hack

Binance said on Saturday that it has replaced 90% of the assets stolen in its $6.3 billion hack, up from 80% the day before. The exchange, a company where people trade cryptocurrencies, said it is still on track to resume customer withdrawals on Sunday.

The theft happened on Thursday and is the largest cryptocurrency hack on record. Blockchain research firm TRM Labs has attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a hacker group linked to North Korea.

Key points from Binance's update

• Binance has replenished 90% of the stolen assets, up from 80% on Friday.
• Customer balances in Bitcoin, Ether, and eight other assets are fully backed, according to the company.
• The remaining gap is in less liquid tokens, which Binance says it is still buying through normal market trades and direct over-the-counter deals.
• The company says withdrawals are targeted to resume on Sunday.

What Binance and its spokesperson say

A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the exchange is using three sources to replace the stolen funds: its corporate treasury, part of its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), and a portion of its futures insurance fund. SAFU is an emergency fund the exchange keeps to protect users, and a futures insurance fund covers losses in futures trading, where traders bet on future prices.

"Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not users," the spokesperson said. The company also said the insurance fund would stay above required risk management levels.

On Friday, Binance said it had set aside $6.34 billion to cover the losses, including $5 billion in the affected cryptocurrencies. Industry partners, including stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, froze about $3 billion in affected assets. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a steady value. Those frozen funds are separate from Binance's own replacement of the stolen tokens.

Proof of reserves still being generated

The security firm CertiK said on Friday that it needed more information to verify Binance's claimed $5 billion in replacement cryptocurrencies. Binance has since published a new reserves snapshot on its website, but the full cryptographic proof is not finished yet. "The full zero-knowledge proof takes approximately 40 to 50 hours to generate due to the computational workload," the exchange's update reads. A zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic method that can show reserves are real without revealing private details.

In an update on X, Binance said customer balances in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and eight other assets were fully backed.

What is confirmed and what is not

Confirmed: the hack took place on Thursday, Binance reports 90% of stolen assets are replenished, it set aside $6.34 billion including $5 billion in affected cryptocurrencies, and it published a new reserves snapshot. TRM Labs attributing the attack to North Korea's TraderTraitor group is reported information from that firm.

Still unclear: the spokesperson did not say how much each funding source contributed, did not disclose the insurance fund's minimum required balance, and did not say how much stolen crypto had been recovered. The full cryptographic proof of the reserves is still being generated, so the $5 billion replacement claim has not yet been independently verified.

Why this matters for Binance users

The hack affected customer assets on the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume. Binance's statement that it will cover the losses itself, rather than passing them to users, and its plan to reopen withdrawals on Sunday are the main facts users are watching. The pending cryptographic proof will show whether the replacement funds are fully verifiable.

What happens next

Binance says it remains on track to resume withdrawals on Sunday and expects the full zero-knowledge proof of its reserves to be complete within roughly 40 to 50 hours of generating it.

Sources

• Cointelegraph