Binance Freezes $2.54 Billion in Crypto Assets as It Investigates Suspected Security Breach

On Thursday, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced that $2.54 billion worth of crypto assets had been frozen while it investigated a possible security breach. The freeze did not come from Binance alone. Reuters reported that the stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether had also frozen assets linked to the incident.

Binance co-founder Yi He made the company's position plain: Binance will cover all hacking losses. The exchange said the frozen total could grow as it works with law enforcement agencies, token issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and other industry partners to trace and freeze more assets. It also said it was running security checks and would resume withdrawals only once the issue was fully resolved. Users were told their funds remained safe, and the company said its teams were reviewing the incident. As a precaution, Binance temporarily suspended trading on its Binance Alpha platform.

The freezes came from several directions. Tether said it had frozen nearly $1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, and Circle froze more than $800 million. Ripple froze around $200 million, according to Yi. Jack McDonald, Ripple's senior vice president of stablecoins, said the company was closely monitoring reports of a possible breach, was freezing affected funds and was coordinating with relevant parties.

World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, said it had worked with the crypto custodian BitGo to freeze funds stolen in what it called a Binance hack. Yi said that effort covered $27 million in stablecoins and about $2 million worth of World Liberty tokens.

What exactly happened is still not established. Changpeng Zhao, a Binance co-founder who no longer runs the company, wrote on X that the incident "looked like a hack." Miguel Morel, CEO of the blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, said data suggested an unknown attacker may have stolen billions of dollars from Binance. The exact cause, however, had not been confirmed. Morel said the incident began around 4:30 pm EST and appeared to be ongoing.

The episode lands in a year already marked by thefts. Researchers at TRM Labs say attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency in nearly 150 attacks last year. In September, the exchange Bitget said about $350 million had been stolen from its platform. Authorities have also warned that organised crime groups increasingly use cryptocurrencies to move money across borders outside the traditional financial system.

The scale of Binance's footprint explains the attention. The exchange lets users buy, sell and trade digital assets, and its 2024 annual report put it at more than 300 million registered users and around $160 billion in assets under custody. Two rivals moved to distance themselves: Binance.US, a separate exchange, said it was not affected, and Coinbase said it was unaffected and was monitoring the situation.

On the same day, in a separate matter, the prediction market operator Polymarket briefly halted trading over a security issue involving a third-party provider. Trading resumed, and the company said it would fully reimburse affected traders.

The things to watch now are whether the frozen total rises, whether the cause is confirmed, and when Binance reopens withdrawals, which it has tied to full resolution of the issue.