Bitcoin traded near $76,866, down 2.5%, after news of a security breach at Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally. Binance announced a withdrawal pause on Thursday evening after numerous users reported that assets were disappearing from their accounts.
Blockchain records indicated that the hack removed assets valued at approximately $5.3 billion, according to crypto data provider Glassnode. Binance offered no response to that estimate.
Glassnode’s breakdown included roughly $1.45 billion in Bitcoin, representing 17,985 coins. It also identified losses of two stablecoins: $767 million in USDC and $1.66 billion in USDT.
Separate freezes affected funds linked to the incident. Financial technology company Circle blocked approximately $800 million in Tether moving through its networks, while Tether froze another approximately $1.56 billion associated with the Binance breach.
The withdrawal announcement followed an earlier warning from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Writing on X hours before the news, Zhao suggested the exchange had probably suffered a hack. He said he expected full coverage of users’ funds, without explaining the basis for that expectation. Although no longer responsible for running Binance, Zhao remains its biggest shareholder.
For its part, Binance maintained that customer assets were secure. Spokesperson Ross O’Leary described the suspension across several networks as a preventive step taken in response to the security incident.
The exchange said through social media that its team was carrying out security checks. It made the restoration of withdrawals conditional on a complete resolution of the security problem, rather than providing a specific time for services to restart.
