Binance Drained of $5.5 Billion in Suspected Hack, Tether and Circle Freeze $1.8 Billion
In brief
- At least $5.57 billion left Binance-linked wallets on Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron on Thursday, per an on-chain tally; Binance said it is investigating.
- Tether froze 975.1 million USDT and Circle froze 823 million USDC in the main receiving wallet, about $1.8 billion in total.
- Bitcoin fell below $79,000, BNB dropped about 7% and Monero rose about 6%.
At least $5.57 billion in crypto has left wallets linked to Binance across three blockchains in what appears to be a breach of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
If confirmed as a hack, it would be the biggest crypto hack on record. Binance has not confirmed its exchange has been hacked but said it is aware of the “potential security issue and is actively investigating.”
“We have not confirmed any impact to user funds,” the company posted on X. “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.”
Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. At this stage, we have not confirmed any impact to user funds.
Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official… pic.twitter.com/dN76yhzYM0
— Binance (@binance) October 29, 2026
Binance is the world's largest crypto exchange, where millions of people buy, sell and store their coins. The money came from its hot wallets, the internet-connected wallets exchanges use to process customer withdrawals.
The tally counts $3.51 billion on Ethereum, $1.44 billion in 18,270 Bitcoin and $630 million on Tron. The first Ethereum transaction, at 20:24 UTC, sent 167,464 ETH plus 63 token transfers to a brand-new address, including 1.615 billion USDT, a stablecoin built to always trade at $1, according to Etherscan.
Three minutes earlier, an address funded through Tornado Cash, a mixer that scrambles the trail of crypto payments, submitted a delegation for a Binance hot wallet using EIP-7702, an Ethereum feature that lets an ordinary wallet run smart-contract code. “7702 lets a normal wallet execute delegated code. The delegation persists; that code can authorize later transfers without another signature from the wallet,” Odysseas Lamtzidi, founder of Phylax Systems wrote on X.
1/4 EIP-7702 can turn the wallet itself into the sweeper.
A Binance-labeled wallet moved 167,464 ETH + 63 tokens, including 1.615B USDT, just 3m24s after a signed delegation was installed.
This is bad.https://t.co/GrvUiya16D pic.twitter.com/zONu8cwW63
— Odysseus | phylax.systems (@odysseas_eth) October 29, 2026
How the attacker got the required signature is still unknown. Tether froze 975.1 million USDT in the main receiving address, and Circle, issuer of the rival stablecoin USDC, froze 823 million USDC in the same wallet at 21:04 UTC, bringing the total frozen to about $1.8 billion. Both issuers can block specific addresses from moving their tokens, but the attacker is moving funds fast.
"Circle is closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance," Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire posted on X. "In coordination with law enforcement, we have frozen more than 800M USDC associated with the incident and will continue supporting the investigation."
Total on the hack is at least $5.57B across 3 chains (likely more)
Tether has started freezing and this time even Circle acted and managed to freeze 800M in a single wallet.
Total frozen: $1.8B
Still $800M could be frozen, attacker is moving funds fast https://t.co/km4eyJWEa8 pic.twitter.com/IL6wBfZK2r
— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) October 29, 2026
Bitcoin slid below $79,000, down about 2.6% in 24 hours, while BNB, Binance's own token, fell about 7% to roughly $699. Monero, a privacy coin that hides who sent what, rose about 6% to $637, echoing the jump of as much as 51% it posted after a $333 million Bitcoin theft in April 2025.
Binance lost 7,000 Bitcoin, about $40 million, in a 2019 hack. The $5.57 billion tally would be more than triple the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit heist in February 2025, the previous record.
