Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced early Sunday that it would initiate a phased approach to allow withdrawals. This decision follows a significant security breach in which hackers stole $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance wallets, prompting the company to freeze all deposits and withdrawals. In its most recent update, Binance reported that it has successfully recovered 95% of the stolen assets and is actively working to acquire the “remaining affected assets,” which are “less liquid in the market and take longer time to source at the required scale.”
“Our commitment remains unchanged: Binance will bear the financial impact of the stolen funds,” the company stated. “These losses will not be passed on to users.” Regarding the withdrawal freeze, Binance emphasized that the decision was not made lightly, acknowledging “how important reliable access to withdrawals is for our users.” However, the company deemed this action necessary as a “precaution while our teams worked to contain the incident loss, assess its impact, restore affected services, and complete security checks.”
Withdrawals will be reinstated in phases, contingent upon the type of asset and network conditions. As of Sunday morning, the company’s network status page indicated a variety of operational statuses, including normal, partially suspended, and fully suspended. For instance, Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits remain partially suspended, while Ethereum deposits are functioning normally, and withdrawals are partially suspended. Additionally, the company advised users to anticipate “temporary delays or longer processing times due to traffic volume.”
“Resuming withdrawals is a major milestone, but our work continues,” Binance remarked. “We will continue strengthening our safeguards, completing the recovery process, and providing updates as progress continues.” The company also indicated that a comprehensive incident report would be released upon the conclusion of its investigation. Previously, Binance attributed the breach to hackers from North Korea. On Saturday, the FBI confirmed that a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor was responsible for the attack, noting that the group was primarily converting the stolen assets into Ethereum, with further laundering expected.
