After suspected hack, crypto giant Binance freezes assets worth more than $2.5bn

Binance investigates security issue

The cryptocurrency exchange said on Thursday it had restricted access to digital assets valued at more than $2.5bn. Binance said the action was intended to keep the assets from being stolen during its investigation into a security issue. Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s former boss and a majority shareholder, said, “It does look like a hack on Binance.” The company has not provided a final account of the incident.

Circle freezes linked assets

Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said his company was following reports of a possible exploit involving Binance. Circle has frozen more than $800m in assets it linked to the incident.

Binance said it was working continuously on the investigation and would publish a full post-mortem after it finished. The company also said users’ funds were safe and urged them to follow official Binance channels for updates.

Cryptocurrency prices fall

Bitcoin fell by around 5% after the alerts. Other major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Solana, also dropped sharply. The price movements followed reports of the security issue, while Binance and Circle described steps they had taken as investigations continued.