Binance probes possible hack as Tether, Circle freeze funds
Tether and Circle froze more than $2.3 billion in stablecoins. Binance has not confirmed a breach, and its founder says it looks like a hack.
Binance is investigating reports of a possible security issue after billions of dollars moved out of wallets linked to the platform on Thursday. The company has not confirmed a breach.
The money went to new addresses on the Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron networks, according to outside on-chain trackers. Their estimates of how much left range from $2.5 billion to $5.57 billion, and the figure shifts with the method. None of the numbers is official.
Tether and Circle, the issuers of two stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to the dollar), have frozen more than $2.3 billion between them.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said his company froze more than $1,567 million in USDT. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire put its freeze at more than $800 million in USDC, in coordination with authorities. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao had cited lower figures: about $971 million for Tether and $823 million for Circle.
There is a limit. An issuer can freeze only its own tokens, so anything that left in ETH or BTC falls outside these freezes.
Zhao wrote on X that it "does look like a hack." As a shareholder, he expects users' funds to be fully covered.
Binance has also revised its own notice. It first said it had not confirmed any harm to user funds; the latest version says those funds are "completely safe," with no report to back that up.
For people with balances on the platform, including users in Mexico, the question is whether the money is backed. The company has issued two different messages, and neither comes with proof. Binance has not published a statement in Spanish or said whether users in Mexico are affected. It also warned of scams that exploit the incident, such as fake links and bogus "recoveries."
In February 2025, the attack on the Bybit exchange totaled about $1.5 billion. If this case reached the high end of the estimates, it would be the largest crypto theft on record.
