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Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has disclosed a security breach estimated at $6.3bn, which would make it the largest crypto hack on record. Co-CEO Richard Teng said the company is cooperating with authorities to investigate the incident and has committed to covering all customer losses.
Binance disclosed a cyberattack resulting in an estimated $6.3 billion loss, which would make it the largest crypto theft on record, surpassing last year's $1.5 billion Bybit hack. The exchange has suspended withdrawals for a security overhaul while keeping deposits open, and says it has worked with partners to freeze roughly $3 billion of the stolen funds, with Tether and Circle separately freezing $1.5 billion and $800 million tied to the attack. Binance says it will cover all losses through its SAFU fund and company reserves.
Binance disclosed a security incident affecting roughly $6.3bn of assets on its main platform, saying about half has since been frozen with help from other crypto firms. The exchange said early investigation points to a compromised engineer's laptop enabling unauthorised withdrawals, and it has suspended withdrawals while verifying the platform is secure. Binance.US said it was unaffected, and Binance pledged to cover all losses and release a full report once the probe concludes.
Polymarket paused trading on its international platform after a UK-based third-party vendor was hacked, draining funds from user wallets. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps estimated roughly 700 users lost about $2.7 million combined. Polymarket said it has notified UK law enforcement and will refund affected traders, but did not confirm the exact scale of losses; its separate, US-regulated Polymarket US platform was unaffected.
Binance confirmed it is investigating a security incident after users reported funds draining from its wallets, and has temporarily halted withdrawals across multiple networks as a precaution. Circle froze roughly $800 million and Tether froze about $1.56 billion in tokens tied to the incident, while crypto watchers estimate at least $2 billion—possibly as much as $5.7 billion—was drained from Binance's hot wallets. Binance says user funds remain safe but has not confirmed the total loss or identified any attacker.
Binance said it is probing a potential security breach after more than $2 billion moved out of one of its wallets to an outside account, with Blockaid putting the figure closer to $3.3 billion. Founder Changpeng Zhao said the incident appears to be a hack but that user funds remain safe, crediting Tether and Circle for quickly freezing roughly $971 million and $823 million respectively.
Polymarket paused trading on its international platform after a breach of a UK-based third-party vendor led to funds being drained from some users' wallets. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps estimated about 700 users were affected and roughly $2.7 million stolen; Polymarket has notified UK law enforcement and pledged to refund affected traders. The company's US-regulated platform, Polymarket US, was not affected, and trading has since resumed.
Binance is probing a suspected security breach after reports that billions of dollars were moved from several of its hot wallets to a newly created Ethereum address. Tether and Circle have frozen more than $2.3 billion in USDT and USDC tied to the incident, while Binance says user funds remain safe and the matter is under active investigation.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told CNBC that only about $1.1 million of the nearly $388 million stolen in last week's hack has been frozen, and she does not expect to recover much more, citing low recovery rates from past exchange hacks. Chen said user account balances were unaffected and that Bitget replenished its protection fund, which had been drawn down from over $464 million to below $200 million, using the company's own capital.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said a September 24 breach that drained $387.5 million from the exchange showed signs of North Korean state-sponsored hackers, pointing to VPN infrastructure previously linked to such groups. Attackers exploited a backend wallet system, forging transfer approvals to authorize fraudulent withdrawals, while cold wallets and private keys stayed secure. Bitget froze withdrawals temporarily and said its $464 million User Protection Fund would cover the entire loss.
On September 11, an attacker exploited two flaws in Symbiosis Finance's smart contracts: a hidden privilege-escalation bug granting fake admin rights, and a missing check that allowed negative transaction fees. Using just 330 satoshi, roughly 25 cents, the attacker set fees to negative values across 12 transactions, minting 46 billion wrapped syBTC tokens on a network meant to represent real Bitcoin. They then sold the fabricated tokens against legitimate wrapped-BTC pairs like WBTC and cbBTC, draining liquidity pools and converting about $336,000 into cash via Uniswap before being blocked.
Liquid Network, a Bitcoin-based payments and settlement platform, disclosed on Sunday that roughly 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in its Federation wallet were withdrawn without authorization, totaling about $320 million. The network described the perpetrators as "purported white-hat hackers" and warned that user wallets on the platform would be affected by the breach.