Binance restarted bitcoin, ether and some stablecoin withdrawals on Sunday after it said it had covered 95% of the $6.3 billion taken in Thursday's hack. Reuters said the first phase covers 15 crypto assets, including bitcoin, ether, XRP and dogecoin, with the rest to follow in stages. Bitcoin withdrawals resumed shortly after 06:00 GMT. Ether, BNB and some USDT and USDC routes were restored in the same window. AFP quoted the exchange saying the first open network was bitcoin, and that each asset and network pair would be checked for stability before it reopened. Saturday's update, reported by The Guardian, had the cover at 90%. The breach itself is in Friday's business story.
About $2 billion moved in the first three hours, and phase one is still the only open batch
Yahoo Finance said Whale Alert flagged about $2 billion leaving Binance within roughly three hours of the restart: 10,000 BTC worth about $779 million, nearly $1 billion of USDT, $200 million of USDC, and 30,000 ETH worth about $68 million. Each transfer was tagged to an unknown wallet. Binance said it had added newly generated addresses to its proof-of-reserves list and that future withdrawals would be paid from those wallets. It has not publicly matched each of those transfers to the new list. Co-founder Yi He said wallets outside the first phase still face security audits, with no firm date for a full reopening. Heavy demand can slow processing. A customer should check the withdrawal page for the live asset and network pair.
The replacement coins come from SAFU, the futures fund and the company treasury
Reuters said Binance covered about $6 billion by buying replacement tokens with company money. The remaining 5% is in less liquid assets that may take longer to source. AFP said the exchange has set aside more than $6.34 billion internally. Reuters said the cash came from the $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users, a bitcoin reserve held for security breaches, plus part of the futures insurance fund and the corporate treasury. About $3 billion of affected assets had been located as of Friday, much of it frozen by stablecoin issuers. A freeze stops a transfer. It is not a refund, and bitcoin and ether cannot be frozen the way a stablecoin can. Readers who get a cold call offering to unlock a Binance balance should start with the recovery desk. The FBI's attribution is in today's regulation note, and the price reaction is in the markets lead. More company coverage is on the business desk.