On the 30th, it was revealed that a significant amount of crypto assets may have been transferred externally from the hot wallet of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
On the same day, Binance announced on its official X account that it is investigating potential security issues and has temporarily suspended withdrawals as a precautionary measure.
According to blockchain data, around 5:24 AM Japan time on the 30th, over 167,000 ETH and approximately 1.6 billion USDT, along with more than 60 other tokens, were transferred to a new address in a single transaction from an Ethereum hot wallet.
It is believed that outflows continued across multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Tron (TRX). The address suspected to belong to the attacker was also noted to have procured funds via the mixing service Tornado Cash.
The outflow amount varies depending on the scope of aggregation, with Coinbase's Conor Grogan estimating that up to $5.8 billion (approximately 916 billion yen) may have been illicitly transferred.
Meanwhile, stablecoin issuers swiftly moved to freeze the funds. Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino disclosed that over 1.567 billion USDT (approximately 247.4 billion yen) was frozen, while Circle's CEO Jeremy Allaire revealed that over 800 million USDC (approximately 126.3 billion yen) was frozen.
According to Binance, including freezes by Ripple and others, the confirmed frozen amount totals $2.54 billion (approximately 401.1 billion yen), with the possibility of further increases.
Binance has assured that user funds are completely safe, although it has not disclosed the amount of damage or the cause.
Binance founder and former CEO CZ (Changpeng Zhao) stated on X that it appears to be a hack on Binance, but expressed the view that user assets are likely safe.
If this incident is officially confirmed as a hack, it would surpass the approximately $1.5 billion (about 236.9 billion yen) outflow that occurred at Bybit in February 2025, marking the largest unauthorized crypto asset outflow to date. The FBI had determined that the Bybit incident was the work of North Korean hacker groups.
Following reports of the outflow, the cryptocurrency market experienced a broad decline, with Bitcoin temporarily falling below $79,000. BNB also dropped more than 7% within 24 hours.
In Japan, Binance Japan provides services to residents, but as of the time of writing, no announcements have been made regarding this incident.
Attention is expected to focus on Binance's confirmation of the damage amount and the disclosure of the cause in the future.
Reference: Binance Announcement, CZ's Post
Image: Shutterstock
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