Binance has reopened withdrawals for Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), placing Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain in the first wave of a phased recovery following its Oct. 29 hot-wallet breach. Phase one ran on November 1, 2026, between 06:00 and 09:00 UTC, putting the two dollar tokens back on the exit rails most users rely on to move funds off the exchange.

The schedule was set out in Recovery Update #4, in which Binance said withdrawals would return in stages as security checks proceed. Deposits remained open throughout the freeze, and the exchange reiterated that user funds are safe and that it will absorb the financial impact of the stolen assets. That loss-absorption stance is the response users have come to expect after exchange breaches: Binance itself has previously covered stolen funds through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), an emergency reserve capitalized from trading fees since 2018.

Phase One Covers Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain

On Ethereum, the first wave covers withdrawals of ETH, USDT, and USDC. On BNB Smart Chain, it includes BNB, USDT, and USDC. The same staged table lists Bitcoin, Tron USDT, and Solana pairs, alongside XRP and other networks. Binance said it prioritized the pairs based on recent user demand and that more networks will follow once checks are complete.

The wave-by-wave approach reflects standard containment practice during exchange incidents: withdrawals stay off while security teams verify that the compromised path has been closed, and each reopening in stages marks progress through the checks Binance has described. That is why the restoration of withdrawals is the industry's most-watched operational signal in a recovery.

The exchange cautioned that early traffic may cause delays and advised users whose listed withdrawals fail to try again shortly.

Context: The Oct. 29 Hot-Wallet Breach

The reopen ends the withdrawal freeze imposed after the breach. In its October 30 Security Incident Update, Binance put the estimated impact near $6.3 billion. Early findings pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, with an attacker possibly reaching a service container to submit unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange reported no evidence of a wallet private-key leak and pledged a fuller post-mortem once verification is complete.

Hot wallets — the internet-connected wallets an exchange uses to process day-to-day withdrawals — are a standing target in the industry, and freezing outbound transfers is a conventional first move once infrastructure is suspected as compromised. The promised post-mortem remains the decisive technical record of what actually happened.

Coverage Reaches About 95%

By Recovery Update #4, coverage stood near 95%, up from roughly 90% in the prior update. BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC are fully backed at 100%, according to a proof-of-reserves snapshot published on Binance's PoR site. The remaining 5% sits in less liquid tokens, which the exchange says it is still buying through market and OTC channels.

Proof-of-reserves snapshots are the mechanism exchanges use to demonstrate backing while confidence is under strain, and the gap between roughly 95% and full coverage is the piece of this recovery still in progress.

What the Restored Dollar Exit Shows

The recurring question is what a restored withdrawal proves when a stablecoin displays a dollar value on an exchange screen. It does not prove the theft is finished; it shows that the exit path works again for the named networks. Holders treat USDT and USDC as the cash leg of crypto, and Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain are the two places that matter most for leaving the venue. A phased table is not a full reopen — it is a controlled unlock of the dollar rails first.

Unknowns remain. Binance has not yet published its full technical post-mortem, not every network and asset is live, and processing times may stay uneven while queues clear. Those open items effectively set the watch list: the promised post-mortem, the next waves of the staged withdrawal table, and any movement in the coverage figure past 95% as buybacks of the less-liquid tail finish. The coverage figures and the PoR snapshot are company claims drawn from the recovery updates. What the updates do show plainly is that the freeze trapping dollar exits has begun to lift.

Source: Live Bitcoin News