On the evening of October 29, digital assets worth over $2 billion were withdrawn from the hot wallets of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance. According to available data, the incident bears the hallmarks of a hack: funds were withdrawn in short series of transactions to newly created addresses. Part of the stolen assets has already been frozen, and exchange users have been promised full compensation for their losses. This was reported by RBC-Ukraine citing a statement by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao on social media X, data from crypto publication BeInCrypto, and blockchain explorer Etherscan.
Timeline of the Fund Withdrawal
According to Etherscan data, at 22:24 Kyiv time, 167,464 ETH — worth about $388 million — as well as 63 tokens, including approximately $1.6 billion in the USDT stablecoin, were withdrawn from Binance wallet 14. Just 24 seconds later, another 28,005 ETH left Binance wallet 16 to the same address. The recipient addresses were created on the same day: within 15 minutes, about $450 million in ETH from one of them was transferred to another new address. The Tree News service estimated the total volume of withdrawn funds at $2.53 billion across more than 60 tokens.
Binance's Reaction and Asset Freezing
"User funds are SAFU! This does look like a Binance exploit," Zhao wrote on X. He thanked Tether and Circle for promptly freezing the stolen stablecoins; according to him, this amounts to a total of nearly $1.8 billion of the withdrawn funds. Zhao also clarified that he no longer manages Binance, but as a shareholder, he expects the exchange to fully cover all client losses.
Phishing Threat Warning
The day before, on October 28, Zhao publicly urged users not to open links in emails and not to download attachments. He warned that the threat could come even from acquaintances whose computers were infected with viruses without their knowledge. Against the background of the subsequent hot wallet incident, this statement reinforces suspicions that the attack was prepared through access compromise rather than solely via a vulnerability in the exchange's infrastructure.
Context: Who is Zhao and What is This Exchange
Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017, but stepped down as CEO in 2023 following a settlement with US authorities. Binance remains the world's largest crypto exchange, widely used including in Ukraine. RBC-Ukraine separately notes that the country still lacks specific tax laws for cryptocurrencies, meaning many digital asset owners do not know whether they should declare their income; according to a lawyer's estimate, cryptocurrency income could be subject to a 23% tax in a number of cases.
