Binance Reopens Withdrawals as Hack Recovery Enters Second Week

Binance restarted customer withdrawals on Sunday, four days after hackers drained roughly $6.3 billion from its hot wallets in the largest crypto theft on record. 

The exchange reopened in stages over the weekend, starting with bitcoin and expanding to 15 networks. The move marked the first real test of whether the platform could absorb a loss of that size without freezing its customers out for longer.

The recovery push began Saturday. In its third recovery update, Binance said it had replenished 90% of the impacted amount with company funds. The exchange drew on part of its Secure Asset Fund for Users, a portion of its futures insurance fund and its corporate treasury to buy replacement tokens. 

The futures fund contribution drew particular attention, since Binance described the remaining balance as a regulatory requirement. Binance also published a new proof-of-reserves snapshot dated October 31, giving users a baseline to check their balances against.

Sunday’s reopening began at 06:00 UTC with BTC. Binance then added ETH, BNB Smart Chain, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Tron, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Zcash, TON and Sui. Between 06:00 and 15:30 UTC, the exchange processed about $4.65 billion in withdrawals against roughly $1.01 billion in deposits.