Binance Sets Aside $6.34 Billion to Cover Hack Losses, CEO Says Customer Assets Are Safe
Binance will cover all hack losses with company funds
Binance will cover every dollar lost in this week's hack using its own money, CEO Richard Teng said on Friday. The exchange has reserved more than $6.34 billion of company funds to pay back stolen assets, and Teng said customer funds were never touched.
Key figures from the announcement
- Binance reserved over $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the hack.
- $5 billion of that is already held in the exact tokens stolen, including USDC and USDT, which are stablecoins pegged to the US dollar, as well as BTC, ETH, and BNB.
- Data from Arkham showed a Tron wallet linked to the hacker moved about 5.19 million TRX, worth roughly $1.73 million, on Friday.
What Binance CEO Richard Teng said
Teng said in a video address that Binance is committed to covering all hacked losses through company funds. He said most user assets are held in cold wallets, which are crypto wallets kept offline, and only moved into a hot wallet, an internet-connected wallet, when a user withdraws. The exchange is buying the remaining tokens through market and over-the-counter channels.
How the attack worked
Teng said the hack hit Binance's own hot wallet and was not carried out by one person. The attacker used a self-destruct mechanism to wipe tooling and traces, making the attack harder to investigate. The attacker also used EIP-7702, an Ethereum feature that lets standard wallets run smart contract code, to obtain approval over a hot wallet. That delegation did not pass through Binance's normal approval controls.
Outside reports on the hack
Blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis attributed the theft to North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor. Between 11:37 a.m. and 12:12 p.m. ET on Friday, a Tron wallet that Arkham attributes to the hacker sent about 5.19 million TRX, worth roughly $1.73 million, to 12 addresses. Decentralized lending protocol Aave said it unfroze all markets on its V3 and V4 deployments after freezing them as a precaution, and founder Stani Kulechov said Aave was unaffected. Binance co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said the theft is the largest in dollar terms but not in Bitcoin terms, pointing to Mt. Gox's loss of 650,000 BTC.
What is confirmed
- Binance reserved more than $6.34 billion of company funds to cover losses.
- Customer funds were not impacted, according to Teng.
- The hack used a self-destruct mechanism and an EIP-7702 delegation to bypass normal approval controls.
- Binance paused withdrawals to rebuild and retest its infrastructure.
What remains uncertain
The source does not state the exact total value of all stolen assets beyond the reserved amount. Binance has not yet published the full proof of reserves report.
Why this matters for users
Binance said customer assets were safe because they are mostly held in cold wallets. The exchange's ability to absorb the loss comes from keeping much of its operating earnings in crypto. Aave said its contracts were unaffected and all positions remain overcollateralized.
What happens next
- Binance aims to restore withdrawals by Sunday.
- It plans to publish a full proof of reserves report by Monday, with an initial view before then.
- The exchange is carrying out a full security review covering endpoints, cloud, key management, and signing.
Sources
Newisty Editorial Team covers technology, cryptocurrency, digital products, online platforms, developer tools and the wider digital economy. Our content is researched from official sources, company announcements, public documentation, market data and other primary or reputable sources. Articles are reviewed and edited before publication for clarity, accuracy and useful context.