Binance saw a huge outpouring of withdrawals when it re-opened to customers on Sunday following a hack for the history books. The cryptocurrency exchange lost $6.3 billion, roughly $3 billion of which was frozen in transit and the rest covered by the company, but it lost a bunch more once it let customers take their money out on November 1.
Customers withdrew $4.649 billion from the exchange in just under 10 hours since it reopened. That's a whole lot of value to lose in a day, and not wholly surprising given the context, but what is more surprising is how many deposits were made in that same timeframe: roughly $1 billion worth.
"Withdrawals were temporarily suspended as a precaution while our teams worked to contain the incident loss, assess its impact, restore affected services, and complete security checks," Binance said of the move.
Users may face slowdowns as systems get back up and running, the company has said.
In later updates, Binance says that deposits into the exchange have begun to creep back up in excess of withdrawals; the total cashflow of the crypto exchange is still a net negative, at -$5 billion by November 3, but the withdrawals are no longer outpacing the deposits by any significant amount. It's still early days and a long way to go to make up for the initial loss in customer funds, but the exchange may still live to fight another day.
Withdrawal data update By 03:00 UTC, we are seeing hourly deposits exceed withdrawals, reflecting improving user activity and stabilizing flows. https://t.co/UiXmYC2lm3November 3, 2026
Meanwhile, the exact details of the attack are still being deliberated. The FBI holds North Korea responsible, agreeing with experts that a group going by the name of TraderTraitor is behind it. The FBI says that it, along with USSS and IRS-CI, has observed the group converting the stolen crypto into Ether, with a view to launder it away into obscurity later.
North Korea, unsurprisingly, denies the FBI's claim. Kim Yo Jong, an official in the NK government, and Kim Jong Un's sister, said it was nothing more than a "sinister attempt" by the US to damage the country's reputation.
"The US has made a trite provocation of linking it with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea again," Kim Yo Jong said.
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