Binance sees spike in withdrawals as exchange returns online after $6.3 billion heist

Nov 1 (Reuters) - Binance customers pulled $3.64 billion, or 2.1% of its assets, as the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange went back online on Sunday after hackers the FBI links to North Korea stole billions from the platform last week.

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By Shubham Kalia and Kanjyik Ghosh

Binance said withdrawals were stabilizing after an initial spike and deposit volumes had remained "substantial". The exchange said it had now covered 95% of the $6.3 billion of stolen assets.

The heist, which analysts believe may be the biggest financial robbery ever, adds to a string of recent crypto thefts. Withdrawal levels are an early test of whether customers still trust the exchange with their money after the attack. Attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency across nearly 150 incidents last year, according to researchers at TRM Labs.

Binance said the net outflows reflected what clients had withdrawn and deposited as of 1530 GMT. Crypto analytics platform DefiLlama said on its dashboard that outflows were higher, at $4.36 billion.

"This figure does not contain the flows we have deposited to our own new hot wallet, so they are not accurate. Our last update on X is closest to accurate (outstanding the moves in both deposits and withdrawals since it was posted)," a spokesperson for Binance said of the DefiLlama data.

Binance, which was founded in China, said the rollout for withdrawals would be carried out in phases, prioritising user demand. The first phase covered 15 tokens including bitcoin, ether and those involving some USDC and USDT stablecoins and dogecoin.

"We are taking a phased approach by prioritizing tokens based on the past week data of user demand," Binance said in an earlier article posted on X.

Binance said earlier on Sunday that it had covered $6 billion of stolen cryptocurrencies by using company money to buy replacement tokens. The remaining 5% of stolen tokens consist of less liquid assets and may take longer to source in the required amounts, it said.

FBI TIES ATTACK TO NORTH KOREAN UNIT

The FBI said on Saturday that the North Korean state-sponsored unit known as TraderTraitor was responsible for the attack.

Pyongyang has for years denied using state-linked cyber units for espionage, financial theft and revenue generation. Its mission in Geneva and embassy in China did not respond to requests for comment.

Law enforcement observed members of the unit converting stolen assets into the cryptocurrency ether, the FBI said in a statement, adding that it expected "further laundering" of the assets through the use of related technology.

Analysts had also pointed to North Korea's involvement. The bulk of the theft unfolded in around 20 minutes beginning late on Thursday and bore similarities to previous large attacks blamed on North Korea, according to US blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis.

US President Donald Trump, however, later on Saturday said it remained unclear whether North Korea was involved.

"We don't know if it's North Korea — but if it is, we'll talk to North Korea about it," Trump told reporters in comments posted by a White House account on X.

BINANCE VOWS TO BEAR FINANCIAL COSTS

Binance has been working with other crypto firms to freeze some of the affected assets, with about $3 billion located as of Friday, it said.

The exchange has repeatedly said it will bear the financial impact of the hack and has set aside around $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the losses.

The money spent buying replacement tokens came from Binance's $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a bitcoin reserve it holds to protect customers in the event of security breaches, as well as some of its Futures Insurance Fund and its corporate treasury, it said on X.

Co-CEO Yi He said on Saturday that Binance would use 50% of its SAFU funds, while the company committed to replenishing the fund to about $1 billion.

Richard Teng, the other co-CEO, has said that the breach was a "complex attack" involving a compromised laptop and malicious software designed to delete evidence of its activity, making it harder to trace and investigate.

Crypto prices fell on Friday, while Binance sought to reassure customers that their funds were safe.

Binance, which allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets, has 335 million registered users globally. It said on Sunday it had $171 billion in total assets under management as of October 28.

BINANCE FOUNDER THANKS US LAW ENFORCEMENT

In a post on X that quoted the FBI statement on North Korea’s involvement, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao thanked the agency for its support. Binance did not respond to a request for comment on North Korea's involvement.

Zhao, who was convicted in the United States of failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program before being pardoned by Trump last year, said US law enforcement agencies provided vital help, including helping to track and freeze stolen assets.

"A tweet can't fully express our gratitude. Many crypto bros may not realize, a lot of the 'why bitcoin didn't drop more?' credit goes to them," Zhao wrote, referring to US law enforcement agencies.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona and Hannah Lang in New York; Additional reporting by Sathvi G Bhat, Angela Christy, Elizabeth Howcroft, Max Cherney and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes; Editing by William Mallard, Joe Bavier, Hugh Lawson, Ros Russell)

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