Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on October 29, 2026, that a wave of outflows from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, "does look like a hack on Binance," while stressing that user funds are safe and that stablecoin issuers have frozen more than $1.7 billion tied to the incident. Binance itself stopped short of confirming a hack, saying only that its teams are investigating a potential security issue and have "not confirmed any impact to user funds." The messages landed about a minute apart as the story unfolded rapidly through the evening; the timeline below compiles the key developments and figures as they were reported.

Two messages, one minute apart

Zhao, widely known as CZ, wrote on X at about 21:16 UTC that "user funds are safe" and that "it does look like a hack on Binance," thanking Tether and Circle for freezing roughly $971 million and $823 million, respectively.

User funds are safe! It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether ($971m) and Circle ($823m). I don't manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 29, 2026

Zhao added that he no longer manages Binance.com, but that as a shareholder he expects all user funds to be fully covered. That is his expectation, not a commitment from the exchange.

Binance's own account was more cautious. In a statement posted at about the same time, the exchange said its teams were aware of reports of a potential security issue and were actively investigating.

Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. At this stage, we have not confirmed any impact to user funds. Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information. Users should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.
— Binance (@binance) October 29, 2026

The exchange said updates would come through official Binance channels once information was verified, and warned users to be wary of scams and unofficial requests for account information.

The result is a split message: the exchange's founder calls the incident a likely hack, while the exchange itself has not yet confirmed one. Binance has covered past losses from its Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU, an emergency reserve set up in 2018 and funded by a share of trading fees, but has not said whether it will draw on it this time.

How much is frozen, and how much isn't

• ~$971M in USDT frozen by Tether
• ~$823M in USDC frozen by Circle
• ~$2.77B in total outflows first reported

Together the two freezes cover about $1.79 billion, roughly two-thirds of the $2.77 billion in outflows reported across five blockchains when the incident came to light. Stablecoin issuers can freeze their own tokens. They cannot freeze ETH or BTC, which means the roughly 195,000 ETH sent to the flagged Ethereum address and the about 16,700 BTC that left Binance wallets are outside those freezes.

Circle's roughly $823 million figure is also larger than the single 780 million USDC transfer from Binance's Hot Wallet 34 seen on Etherscan, which suggests more USDC was involved than that one transaction.

The next details to watch are Binance's findings on the cause and scale of the incident, whether withdrawals stay open, and how the exchange plans to cover any losses.

How the story developed

Update, about 21:29 UTC. Tether has now frozen $1.5 billion in USDT linked to the suspected Binance hack, Paolo Ardoino reported, up from about $971 million earlier in the evening. Together with Circle's roughly $823 million, stablecoin freezes now total about $2.3 billion.

Tether froze more than 1.567B USDT related to a potential Binance exchange hack. Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority. Stay safe everyone.
— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) October 29, 2026

Update, about 21:36 UTC. Trader Michaël van de Poppe put the total Binance exploit at $5.5 billion, about double the $2.77 billion first reported, and said Tether had frozen more than $2.25 billion and Circle more than $700 million. He did not cite a source for the figures, and Binance has not confirmed the size of any loss.

Update, about 21:42 UTC. Watcher.Guru reported a total of more than $5.6 billion taken from Binance and called it the largest hack in crypto history. Its breakdown:

$1.57B USDT · $1.45B BTC · $875M ETH · $823M USDC · $234M TRX · $88.5M RLUSD · $75M WBETH · $50M XAUT · $447.5M in other tokens

If accurate, that would be well above the roughly $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025, the largest crypto hack on record so far. Binance has not confirmed the size of any loss, and Watcher.Guru did not cite a source for the breakdown. Its USDT and USDC figures roughly match the amounts Tether and Circle have frozen, which would leave most of the stablecoin portion locked.

Update, about 21:42 UTC. Binance.US said it is not affected by what it called "the reported Binance.com security incident." The US exchange said it is a separate, independent platform, and that customer funds and services are secure and operating normally.

Update, about 22:02 UTC. On-chain analyst Darkfost said the exploit was still ongoing, with $38.55 million in PEPE moved alongside LINK, UNI, ENA, COMP, AAVE, QNT, SHIB, ONDO, PENDLE, IMX, MORPHO and other tokens. His running tally of assets moved out of Binance by chain:

Ethereum $3.528B · Bitcoin $1.449B · Tron $628M · Arbitrum, Optimism and Base $38M combined

That adds up to about $5.64 billion, in line with the $5.5 to $5.6 billion totals reported earlier, though Darkfost noted the figures were changing rapidly. Binance has not confirmed the size of any loss.

Update, about 22:23 UTC. Binance has disabled withdrawals — a step exchanges commonly take to contain a suspected breach while it is under investigation. Co-founder Yi He wrote on X that withdrawals are "currently disabled until the environment is confirmed to be secure," and repeated that user funds are SAFU, Binance's shorthand for its user protection fund.

She also thanked more issuers for freezes. Ripple froze approximately 200 million, she said, without naming the asset, and World Liberty Financial froze $27 million in its USD1 stablecoin and 48 million WLFI tokens, worth about $2 million.

This is a developing story. Last updated: October 29, 2026, 22:37 UTC.