Binance Pledges to Cover Record $6.3B Hack as Users Pull $3.6B in Net Withdrawals

Binance is absorbing the largest crypto theft on record. The exchange said it "will bear the financial impact of the stolen funds" from the roughly $6.3 billion hack, and had already replaced about 95% of the stolen crypto from corporate treasury, emergency and insurance funds before reopening. On Saturday the FBI blamed TraderTraitor, a North Korea-linked hacking group it also blamed last year for the $1.5 billion theft from Bybit.

The real test came when services restarted on Sunday, November 1. Users withdrew $4.65 billion while depositing $1.01 billion, for a net outflow of $3.64 billion, which the Financial Times put at about 2.1% of the exchange's assets. Headlines quoting $4.6 billion refer to the gross withdrawals, and those quoting $3.6 billion to the net figure, so they describe the same day rather than competing estimates. Bloomberg reported that the outflow eased after an initial spike.

Bitcoin absorbed the shock without a collapse but did not escape it: it traded around $78,000 on November 1, roughly 5% below its level before the theft, per Bloomberg. The backdrop was already soft, with Bitcoin having traded above $86,000 earlier in October according to the Associated Press.

What to watch now is whether net outflows keep fading over the coming days, which would suggest Binance's pledge to make users whole is holding, and whether law enforcement recovers or freezes more of the stolen funds. The episode also revives questions about custody and operational security at the largest centralized exchanges, which tend to draw regulatory attention after losses of this size.