Binance says $3bn in crypto funds frozen amid suspected hack

New York — Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says about $3bn in crypto funds have been frozen as it investigates what it calls a "potential security issue" — an incident its own founder says looks like a hack. The company suspended all deposits and withdrawals on Thursday, promised to cover all losses and insisted that "user funds are safe".

The freeze was carried out largely by stablecoin issuers. Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said his firm froze about $1.6bn in its dollar-linked USDT token, according to CNA; Circle boss Jeremy Allaire said his company froze more than $800m in USDC "in coordination with law enforcement", the Guardian reported.

How much was actually stolen remains unclear. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis put its "current estimate on amount stolen is approx US$5.912B at time of theft", a figure that cannot be independently verified. Former Binance chief Changpeng Zhao, who stepped down as CEO in 2023 but remains the largest shareholder, estimated total losses could be "a bit higher" than $1 billion. "It does look like a hack on Binance," he wrote on X.

Markets flinched. Bitcoin, the most traded cryptocurrency, fell about 5 percent to below $77,000 following the incident, Al Jazeera reported, with most other major tokens also lower. Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are pegged to the US dollar, which is why their issuers can freeze tokens at the request of law enforcement — one of the few levers the industry has to claw back stolen funds.

If the Chainalysis estimate holds, the theft would dwarf the previous record: the $1.5bn taken from the Bybit exchange in February 2025, an attack attributed to North Korea-affiliated hackers. Cybercriminals stole $2.87bn in crypto across nearly 150 incidents in 2025, according to the 2026 Crypto Crime Report by intelligence firm TRM. Binance, founded in China by Zhao in 2017, holds about $155bn in assets under management, more than any other exchange, according to CoinMarketCap.

Neither Binance nor outside analysts have explained how the attackers got in, and the US Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Binance said it was "working around the clock" and warned users to beware of scams and unofficial links. The next test of the story is the "full post-mortem" the exchange has promised once its investigation concludes — that document will show whether the frozen billions are recovered, and who pays if they are not.