Binance has begun reopening customer withdrawals after freezing deposits and withdrawals in the wake of a hack that drained $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from its wallets, the exchange announced early Sunday. The company said it has already covered 95% of the stolen assets and is still working to acquire the rest. Those remaining assets are less liquid in the market and take longer to source at the required scale, according to Binance.
The exchange stated that it will absorb the cost of the stolen funds and that the losses will not be passed on to users. Binance described the freeze as a precaution taken while its teams contained the incident loss, assessed the impact, restored affected services and completed security checks. The company said it understood how important reliable access to withdrawals is for its users and did not make the decision lightly.
Withdrawals are being restored in stages, with timing depending on network and asset type. Binance's network status page on Sunday morning showed a mixture of normal, partially suspended and fully suspended statuses. Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits were still listed as partially suspended, while Ethereum deposits were normal and Ethereum withdrawals were partially suspended. The company warned users to expect temporary delays or longer processing times because of traffic volume.
Binance called the resumption of withdrawals a major milestone but said its work continues. It said it will keep strengthening its safeguards, finish the recovery process and issue updates as progress is made. The company also said it will publish a more detailed incident report once its investigation concludes.
Binance had previously blamed North Korean hackers for the breach. On Saturday, the FBI attributed the attack to a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor. The bureau said the group was converting the assets mainly into Ethereum, with further laundering expected.
The incident puts the security practices of one of the largest crypto exchanges before US users and regulators at a moment when North Korean state-linked theft remains an active concern for American law enforcement. The FBI's public attribution underscores the bureau's focus on such groups. Binance has not yet released its full incident report. The company said its investigation is ongoing and that it will provide further updates as it completes recovery and security work.
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