Bitcoin fell below $77,000 in the early hours of October 30, reaching its lowest level in six weeks after a record hot-wallet hack at Binance prompted the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to suspend deposits and withdrawals. Binance said it was freezing funds, coordinating with law enforcement and would cover all losses.

Bitcoin traded near $76,600 on Binance, down about 4% over 24 hours. The decline followed the draining of Binance 14, one of the exchange’s most active Ethereum hot wallets—the internet-connected wallets exchanges rely on for day-to-day deposits and withdrawals—in a transaction initially estimated at about $2.5 billion. That estimate increased as Binance and security firms continued assessing the damage. Ether, Solana and Binance’s $BNB token fell more sharply than Bitcoin.

We are working non-stop to resolve this issue. Binance will cover all losses. As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement.

— Binance (@binance), October 30, 2026

Binance Moves From Warning to Full Freeze

The statement, posted at 00:13 UTC, represented a major escalation from Binance’s first public comment. The exchange initially said it was “aware of reports of a possible security issue” and had “not confirmed that user funds have been affected.” Within minutes, it said that “user funds are completely safe,” and by the early morning it had frozen the platform’s on-chain activity.

Binance paused withdrawals on multiple networks at 22:15 UTC on October 29. It later suspended deposits and Binance Alpha trading. The full freeze came with the exchange’s first official estimate: $2.54 billion in assets had been frozen, “and this figure may continue to increase.” Updates posted by Binance on October 30 put the verified frozen total at $3 billion.

Co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs Binance but remains its largest shareholder, wrote on X: “User funds are safe! It does look like a hack on Binance.” He thanked Tether and Circle for freezing roughly $971 million and $823 million, respectively. When asked about a loss estimate of approximately $1 billion after the freezes, Zhao replied: “Loss might be a bit higher than that, but will cover.”

How Binance 14 Was Drained

The on-chain activity transformed what initially appeared to be a routine wallet transfer into a major security incident. At 20:24 UTC on October 29, Binance 14 sent 167,464 $ETH, worth about $388 million, along with 63 other tokens to an address that had not existed before that evening. The transfer included roughly $1.6 billion in Tether ($USDT). Twenty-four seconds later, a second wallet, Binance 16, sent another 28,005 $ETH to the same destination. BlockchainReporter’s earlier report described the full sequence.

Security firm Blockaid attributed the mechanism to EIP-7702, an Ethereum feature that allows an ordinary wallet to temporarily delegate control to a smart contract. At 20:20:59 UTC, a wallet funded only through the Tornado Cash mixer, a service that obscures the origin of funds by mixing them with others, installed a signed delegation on Binance 14. Four minutes later, the attacker’s contract emptied the wallet in a single call. Blockaid’s broader assessment put assets drained across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron and other chains at roughly $5.5 billion, which would make the incident the largest cryptocurrency theft on record.

Installing that delegation required a signature from Binance 14’s own key. For that reason, investigators characterized the incident as a key compromise rather than a protocol bug—a distinction that points to the handling of the exchange’s signing keys rather than to a flaw in Ethereum’s code.

Tether and Circle acted to limit the movement of the stolen assets. Tether froze $975 million in $USDT in the main collection address, although CEO Paolo Ardoino later put the figure above $1.5 billion. Circle froze $823 million in $USDC. Stablecoin issuers can freeze balances directly at the token-contract level, which is how interventions of this kind are enforced.

“Circle is closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance,” CEO Jeremy Allaire wrote on X. “In coordination with law enforcement, we have frozen more than 800M $USDC associated with the incident and will continue supporting the investigation.”

Bitcoin Leads a Broad Market Decline

Bitcoin fell about 4% over 24 hours to approximately $76,600, according to Binance market data, after reaching $81,971 earlier in the session. Ether dropped 5.2% to around $2,195, Solana declined 5.9% to about $94, and $BNB fell 5.6% to approximately $704.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization was roughly $1.5 trillion, substantially larger than the $2.5 billion to $3 billion in stolen assets. The drain therefore represented about 0.2% of Bitcoin’s network value and did not mechanically determine its price. The decline coincided with renewed concern that the largest cryptocurrency venue could be breached and that no custodian is fully insulated from security risks.

Bitcoin’s intraday low near $76,650 was its lowest price since September 18, when it briefly reached $76,296. The cryptocurrency gave up its seven-day gain and was down about 5.5% over the week after trading above $80,000 for most of late October.

Price Levels Highlighted by Recent Trading Data

Bitcoin was trading below its 24-hour volume-weighted average price of approximately $79,380 and its seven-day simple moving average near $79,750. The first support area was the October 30 low at $76,650, followed by the September 18 low of $76,296. A daily close below $76,300 would represent the first clear break of the range held over the previous six weeks.

On the upside, $78,000 was the first level to reclaim. The price had acted as support through late October before the freeze and could therefore function as resistance. The 24-hour high of $81,971 and the $80,035 level at which the 24-hour session opened were additional levels identified from recent trading data.

These levels were derived from Binance’s public price feed for the preceding 24 hours and daily candles from the previous six weeks, rather than from a forecast model.

What the Decline Establishes—and What It Does Not

The decline occurred alongside Binance’s freeze, but the available data does not establish how much of the move was specific to Binance and how much reflected broader risk reduction. Spot selling, leveraged liquidations and general market risk aversion can all push prices lower at the same time. The larger decline in $BNB relative to Bitcoin was consistent with Binance being a catalyst, but it remained circumstantial evidence.

The freeze also came hours after a separate incident at Polymarket, which paused trading following a breach involving a third-party vendor. The two exchange-related security events occurred during the same evening, while both incidents remained under investigation.

Binance had not published a technical post-mortem, and the final loss figure remained unsettled as freezes and potential recoveries were still being counted.

Next Developments

Binance’s proof-of-reserves snapshot, due November 1, was the next scheduled development. Proof-of-reserves reports are designed to demonstrate that an exchange’s on-chain holdings back its customer balances. The snapshot was expected to indicate whether the exchange had replenished the drained hot wallets from cold reserves and how much of the $2.54 billion to $3 billion in frozen assets could be recovered.

The resumption of withdrawals was another key development. Binance said it would reopen withdrawals “as soon as the security issue is fully resolved,” but did not provide a timeline. A prolonged suspension would raise further questions about counterparty risk—the exposure users take on whenever assets are held with an intermediary rather than in their own custody.

The Arbitrum Security Council had already carried out an emergency freeze of $30.5 million linked to the exploit. The assets included 74.6 million ARB and 8,425 $ETH, which were moved to an intermediary wallet controlled by governance. Other chains and issuers could take similar action as investigators tracked the roughly 20 wallets used by the attacker to distribute the proceeds.

Until Binance published its post-mortem, the exchange’s stated position remained that user funds were safe, all losses would be covered and the investigation was continuing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Binance said user funds were safe and that it would cover all losses. Changpeng Zhao also said he expected all user funds to be fully covered. Withdrawals remained temporarily suspended while the exchange conducted security checks.

The initial transaction drained about $2.5 billion. Binance confirmed that $2.54 billion had been frozen, with the total later rising to $3 billion. Blockaid estimated roughly $5.5 billion across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron and other chains, which would make the incident the largest cryptocurrency theft on record.

Bitcoin fell about 4% over 24 hours to a six-week low as the Binance hot-wallet hack and the suspension of deposits and withdrawals affected the broader cryptocurrency market. Ether, Solana and $BNB declined more sharply.

Binance did not provide a timeline for restoring withdrawals, saying only that they would resume after the security issue was fully resolved. The company said it would publish a full post-mortem after completing its investigation.

Source: CryptoNewsNet