New York, Nov 2 Binance witnessed a massive increase in outflows, with customers withdrawing USD 3.6 billion from the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange after the largest theft in its history, which has been linked to North Korea.
According to media reports, customers withdrew USD 3.6 billion of assets from Binance as it reopened on Sunday following the theft of USD 6.3 billion on Thursday.
The company had suspended all transactions following the incident.
“Binance began restoring withdrawals in phases at 06:00 UTC on November 1, 2026,” the company posted on X on Sunday, three days after it froze assets in the wake of the theft.
“By 12:36 UTC, withdrawals had resumed for all 15 networks and assets in the initial phase. After an initial spike, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilising as expected, while deposit volumes have remained substantial,” it said.
According to Binance, customers deposited USD 1.01 billion and withdrew about USD 4.649 billion in assets. Most of those transactions occurred in the first few hours after trading was restored, it added.
The outflow of USD 3.64 billion represents 2.1 per cent of USD 171 billion in total assets under its management, the company said on Sunday.
“Our team continues testing rigorously the remaining networks and assets. We know how important safe and reliable access to your funds is and will share details of the next phase as soon as we can. Rest assured that market conditions are stable,” Binance said in a post on X.
The company said that it would cover all losses that occurred during the hack and that it had worked with other cryptocurrency firms to freeze about USD 3 billion in stolen assets, according to a The New York Times report.
The paper said that the cybersecurity analysts and the FBI have attributed the theft to North Korea, which has targeted cryptocurrency companies for years, taking advantage of vulnerabilities in their infrastructure to steal assets.
“The hackers may have used artificial intelligence technology to accelerate their attack, according to the crypto analytics firm Chainalysis, which said that the attackers processed ‘thousands of transactions in a short period’,” the NYT report said.
Changpeng Zhao, a co-founder of Binance, said, “Trust isn’t earned by what you say in good times. It’s earned by what you do in hard times.”
According to the NYT, he also warned customers to beware of online scammers making bogus offers of compensation.
(PTI News)
