2026-10-31
Binance crypto theft (about US$6.3 billion): are user funds covered, and what account holders should do
Binance said that its hot wallets were compromised at about 20:05 UTC on October 29, 2026 and that unauthorized withdrawals followed, with an estimated impact of about US$6.3 billion. Binance says user funds are safe and that it will cover the loss from its SAFU fund and company funds, and that about US$3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far. Its first update said the initial investigation suggested that a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals; its second update said further investigation uncovered additional points of breach, and that no evidence of a wallet private key leak has been found. Withdrawals are temporarily suspended; deposits are operating. This site's conclusion: in what has been disclosed, this was a theft from the exchange's own wallets, and Binance has not listed customer data as affected, so the main risk for account holders now is fake support, fake refund and fake recovery messages. Open Binance only from your own bookmark or official app, never share a seed phrase, private key or verification code, and turn on two-factor authentication.