Binance has used part of its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to cover losses from Thursday’s $6.3 billion hack, reducing the balance of its publicly disclosed Bitcoin wallet by roughly half.
The exchange confirmed a transfer of 7,499 BTC on Saturday. By Monday, the wallet held approximately 7,500 BTC, valued at $583 million, compared with about 15,000 BTC before the transfer.
The theft was described as the largest in cryptocurrency history. Binance temporarily suspended withdrawals while working to replace the stolen assets. The FBI attributed the attack to North Korea and identified the hackers as TraderTraitor.
Binance began reopening withdrawals in phases on Sunday. The exchange said it had replenished about 95% of the affected assets, up from 90% the previous day, and was continuing to acquire the remaining less-liquid tokens through market and over-the-counter transactions.
To cover the losses, Binance is drawing on its corporate treasury, SAFU and part of its futures insurance fund. SAFU’s policy requires regular monitoring and rebalancing of the fund’s market value. It states that Binance will restore the fund to $1 billion if its value falls below $800 million because of Bitcoin price fluctuations.
However, the policy does not set a deadline for replacing funds used after a security incident. Binance did not immediately respond to questions about SAFU’s remaining reserves, any further deployments or plans to replenish the fund.
Binance also said users could verify their balances against the proof-of-reserves snapshot taken on Saturday after the exchange completed the related cryptographic proof. According to the company, customer holdings in 10 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether and USDT, were backed at least 1:1.
The exchange plans to take another snapshot covering more tokens on Wednesday. Binance said the accompanying proof is expected to take between 40 and 50 hours to generate.
Sources: Cointelegraph.