Binance halts withdrawals; frozen funds verified at $2.54 billion

Binance has halted withdrawals while its team carries out "security reviews," the exchange said Thursday. They will resume "as soon as the security issue is fully resolved."

It did not say which networks are affected or when users can expect their money back.

Binance then suspended trading on Binance Alpha, its section for newly listed tokens, "temporarily" and again with no restart date.

The total frozen funds the exchange considers verified is $2.54 billion. That corrects a $1.8 billion figure that had been circulating, Binance said in a later notice.

How much left its wallets is unstated, and the exchange's notices do not call the incident a hack. Outside estimates of the outflow run from about $2.5 billion to about $5.8 billion, depending on who is counting. None comes from the company.

Every notice repeats that user funds remain safe. The first one said only that Binance had not confirmed any effect on them, and none comes with a report backing up the latest claim.

For customers with balances on the platform, including users in Mexico, the pause means the money cannot be withdrawn for as long as it lasts. Binance has not said whether anyone in Mexico is affected or published a notice in Spanish. Earlier reporting is in our first story on the possible hack.

The frozen total could keep rising, Binance warned, as it works with authorities.