$5.5 Billion Leaves Binance Wallets in Suspected Hack; Tether and Circle Freeze $1.8 Billion

As reported by Decrypt, at least $5.57 billion in crypto has left wallets linked to Binance across three blockchains. If confirmed as a hack, it would be the largest on record. Binance has not confirmed a breach, but said it is aware of a "potential security issue" and is investigating. The company said it has not confirmed any impact on user funds.

What is known about the transfers

The funds came from the exchange's hot wallets, which are used to process customer withdrawals. The total includes $3.51 billion on Ethereum, $1.44 billion in 18,270 BTC and $630 million on Tron. Etherscan shows the first Ethereum transaction at 20:24 UTC: 167,464 ETH and 63 token transfers, including 1.615 billion USDT, sent to a new address. Three minutes earlier, an address funded through the Tornado Cash mixer submitted a delegation for a Binance hot wallet using EIP-7702. How the attacker obtained the required signature is still unknown.

Tether froze 975.1 million USDT in the main receiving address, and Circle froze 823 million USDC there at 21:04 UTC. In total about $1.8 billion is frozen, though the attacker is moving funds quickly.

Market reaction

Bitcoin fell below $79,000 (about −2.6% in 24 hours), BNB dropped about 7% to roughly $699, and Monero rose about 6% to $637. The previous record was the Bybit theft of about $1.5 billion in February 2025.

For people who handle USDT exchange, the story is a reminder that stablecoin issuers can block specific addresses. For reference, at Draxma 1 USDT = 45.9946 UAH as of 29 October 2026, 22:08 UTC.