Binance Drained of $5.5 Billion in Suspected Hack, Tether and Circle Freeze $1.8 Billion

An on-chain count indicates a suspected drain of $5.57 billion from Binance-linked wallets across Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Tron. Concurrently, Tether and Circle have frozen $1.8 billion.

At least $5.57 billion in crypto has departed wallets associated with Binance across three different blockchains, suggesting a possible breach of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. If this is confirmed as a hack, it would constitute the largest crypto hack on record.

Binance has not confirmed its exchange was hacked but stated it is "actively investigating" a "potential security issue." The company posted on X, "We have not confirmed any impact to user funds." They added, "Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information."

The funds were traced to hot wallets, which are internet-connected wallets used by the exchange for customer withdrawals. The total tally includes $3.51 billion on Ethereum, $1.44 billion in 18,270 Bitcoin, and $630 million on Tron.

The initial Ethereum transaction, occurring at 20:24 UTC, involved 167,464 ETH plus 63 token transfers to a new address, which held 1.615 billion USDT, a stablecoin pegged to $1. Three minutes prior, an address utilizing Tornado Cash submitted a delegation for a Binance hot wallet using EIP-7702.

Odysseas Lamtzidi, founder of Phylax Systems, noted on X that "7702 lets a normal wallet execute delegated code. The delegation persists; that code can authorize later transfers without another signature from the wallet." A Binance-labeled wallet moved 167,464 ETH + 63 tokens, including 1.615B USDT, just 3m24s after the delegation was installed.

Tether froze 975.1 million USDT in the main receiving address, and Circle, the issuer of USDC, froze 823 million USDC in that same wallet at 21:04 UTC, totaling about $1.8 billion frozen. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated on X, "In coordination with law enforcement, we have frozen more than 800M USDC associated with the incident and will continue supporting the investigation."

In related market movements, Bitcoin fell below $79,000, dropping about 2.6% in 24 hours. BNB, Binance's token, decreased by about 7% to approximately $699. Monero, a privacy coin, rose about 6% to $637.

The $5.57 billion figure surpasses the previous record set by the Bybit heist in February 2025, which was roughly $1.5 billion.