Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes, has frozen digital assets worth around $3bn (£2.24bn) to prevent them from being stolen while it investigates a security issue.Binance announced the measures on Thursday through a series of online alerts. It has not said how much may have been stolen, but some crypto experts have put the figure well above $5bn.
Glassnode, a digital asset advisory firm, estimated the hack concerns a total of $5.3bn. New York-based blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimated that more than $5.9bn has been stolen, nearly four times the value of crypto stolen from Dubai-based exchange Bybit in 2025, a record-breaking incident attributed to hackers linked to North Korea.
“It does look like a hack,” said Binance’s former boss Changpeng Zhao on X. Zhao no longer manages the firm but remains a key shareholder.
Two other major platforms, Tether and Circle, said they have frozen a total of about $2.4bn of assets in response. Circle, issuer and co-creator of the USDC stablecoin, has frozen more than $800m, said CEO Jeremy Allaire, whose firm is “closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance”.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said his firm, which issues USDT, has frozen around $1.6bn “related to a potential Binance exchange hack.” He added: “Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority.”
The incident concerns Binance.com. Binance.US, which serves American residents, said its platform is not affected.
Binance said the frozen amount may continue to rise as it works with law enforcement and partners to trace and seize more assets. “We are working around the clock and will share a full post-mortem once the investigation is complete. Please rely only on official Binance channels for updates,” it said, adding that users’ funds are safe.
Bitcoin fell by around 5% after the alerts, while Ethereum and Solana also dropped sharply. Several industry observers had flagged concerns hours before Binance confirmed the issue.