Binance pauses withdrawals as hackers suspected of draining billions

Binance told TechCrunch it is working through a security incident, confirming the issue after users flagged money flowing out of the exchange’s wallets without authorization. In an emailed statement, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said it is “aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating,” adding that user funds are “completely safe” and urging customers to be wary of scams and unofficial links or messages while it reviews the situation. A company spokesperson said Binance had “temporarily suspended withdrawals on multiple networks” as a precaution.

The news came hours after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the company but remains its largest shareholder, posted on X that Binance had likely been hacked. Zhao said he expects user funds to be “fully covered” but gave no explanation for that claim.

Financial tech giant Circle froze roughly $800 million in Tether passing through its networks, while Tether itself froze about $1.56 billion tied to the Binance incident. Binance’s hot wallets — internet-connected wallets used to store crypto — have lost at least $2 billion, by crypto watchers’ estimates, and some put the total as high as $5.7 billion, though those figures remain unconfirmed and the theft may still be ongoing. It’s unclear who is behind the breach, and Binance hasn’t said whether it has heard from the attackers. If the losses are confirmed in the billions, trackers of crypto thefts say this would likely rank among the largest breaches on record — larger than the $1.4 billion North Korea-linked hack of Bybit in 2025.

In a separate incident the same day, prediction-market platform Polymarket briefly halted trading after confirming a third-party vendor had been compromised, prompting it to pause withdrawals too. Security researchers said hackers stole roughly $2 million in user funds there after breaching software built by a company called DebugBear.

Why it matters

A breach of this scale at the industry’s largest exchange, landing the same day as a second platform’s third-party compromise, underscores how much crypto infrastructure still depends on trust in a handful of custodians and their vendors.