Binance reports breach affecting $6.3 billion in assets

Binance has disclosed a security incident affecting around $6.3 billion of assets on its platform, with about $3 billion already frozen on-chain. The exchange said there is no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked and that it will cover losses from its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and its own reserves. Tether and Circle separately reported freezing more than USDT 1.567 billion and USDC 800 million tied to the incident.

The Arbitrum Security Council is said to have frozen approximately US$30.5 million from the Binance exploit. Binance indicated that an initial investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop enabling an attacker to access a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.

Binance described the breach as a “security incident” and said it is working with law enforcement and blockchain intelligence partners to trace and recover funds. Deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended as security checks continue, and affected address authorisations have been revoked. The firm emphasised it is cooperating to identify the criminals.

The incident is being compared with prior large crypto heists, with Chainalysis estimating the total stolen amount around $5.912 billion at the time of the theft—placing this among the largest recorded crypto heists. The evolving picture includes ongoing investigations and asset tracing by multiple parties, with updates expected as new forensic details emerge.