Binance Covers Majority of $6.3 B Hack
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Saturday that it has replenished roughly 90% of the $6.3 billion stolen in the record‑breaking hack. The exchange used a mix of corporate treasury funds, emergency reserves and insurance to restore the affected assets, which included Bitcoin, Zcash and the stablecoins USDT and USDC. Binance also confirmed that it will resume customer withdrawals by Sunday after having suspended the service as part of its response.
Market Reaction
At 16:48 ET (20:48 GMT), Bitcoin rose 0.87% to $77,558.8, recovering from a dip below $77,000 that had persisted for the first time in over a month. Other major tokens displayed mixed performance: Ether increased 0.6% to $2,254.35, XRP was flat at $1.2501, Solana rose 0.4% to $95.60, BNB gained 0.8% to $704.70, Cardano fell 0.5% to $0.1926, Dogecoin added 0.4% to $0.075712, and Shiba Inu slipped 1.5%. Earlier on Friday, Bitcoin had fallen to $77,445.96 (down 4.1%) and Ether to $2,229.50 (down 4.4%) following the hack announcement.
Investigation and Attribution
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is coordinating with partners to assess the scope of the incident. Blockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic have linked the theft to a North Korean hacking group identified as Tradertraitor. Chainalysis described the event as the largest crypto‑theft in history and highlighted previously unseen laundering patterns involving thousands of transactions. The attackers converted $325 million of stablecoins into $285 million of Ether, apparently to move funds beyond issuer‑controlled freezes.
Funding Coverage Progress
Binance’s latest update shows progress from an earlier disclosure that it had covered around 80% of the stolen funds. The remaining tokens are described as less liquid, making them harder to replace.
Investor Flows
Data from SoSoValue indicated that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $643.33 million on Friday, snapping a four‑day streak of inflows that had attracted about $440.73 million between October 26 and October 29.
Analyst Commentary
Finimize analyst Theodora Lee Joseph noted the irony of a centralized exchange intervening to recover stolen crypto and cited higher interest rates and uneven ETF demand as factors behind Bitcoin’s roughly 10% year‑to‑date decline and a 40% drop from its 2025 peak.