Binance has confirmed it is responding to a security incident after users reported that funds were being drained from the cryptocurrency exchange's wallets. The company told TechCrunch it was aware of reports of a potential security issue and was actively investigating. In its statement, Binance asserted that user funds are completely safe and said its security teams were urgently reviewing all relevant information. It said updates would come through official Binance channels once information is verified, and it warned users to be wary of scams and to distrust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.
Binance spokesperson Ross O'Leary said the exchange had temporarily suspended withdrawals on multiple networks as a precautionary measure following the incident. The disclosure came hours after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said in a post on X that the company likely had been hacked. Zhao, who no longer runs the company but remains its largest shareholder, said he expects users' funds to be fully covered, though he did not explain the basis for that claim. Binance did not say whether it had received any correspondence from the hackers, and it is unclear who is behind the breach.
The financial tech giant Circle froze about $800 million in Tether as it moved through its networks, while the crypto giant Tether froze about $1.56 billion tied to the Binance hack. Crypto watchers say at least $2 billion has been drained from Binance's hot wallets, the internet-connected cryptocurrency wallets that store crypto connected to the internet. Some estimates put Binance's possible losses at upward of $5.7 billion in crypto, though those figures have not been confirmed and it is possible the theft is ongoing.
If the losses are confirmed in the billions, the breach would likely rank among the largest in crypto history, according to leaderboards that track crypto thefts. In 2025, hackers stole a record $1.4 billion in crypto in a single breach from the exchange Bybit, an attack blamed on North Korean hackers. The Binance incident would be measured against that benchmark if the reported figures hold.
In what appears to be a separate incident earlier on Thursday, the prediction market giant Polymarket briefly halted trading after confirming that a third-party company had been compromised, which led the company to pause withdrawals. According to security researchers, hackers stole around $2 million in user funds after compromising a piece of software developed by a company called DebugBear.
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