Bitcoin fell below $79,000 on Thursday as reports of a possible major hack at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, unsettled markets. The suspected outflows and subsequent stablecoin freezes were reported as investigations continued, but Binance had not confirmed a breach.
Some social media reports cited suspicious outflows of as much as $5.8 billion. Onchain data reportedly showed about $3.55 billion in transfers to an unlabeled wallet, while Coinbase senior director Conor Grogan also put the figure at $5.8 billion. Blockaid said it was investigating $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance hot wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche.
Stablecoin issuers moved to freeze funds. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT. Former Binance CEO and shareholder Changpeng Zhao said Circle froze about $823 million in USDC. Reported combined freezes ranged from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion.
Binance co-founder Yi He said on X that the company was aware of reports of a potential security issue and that its security teams were reviewing the information. The company said it would share updates through official channels once it had verified details, and urged users to be wary of scams and unofficial requests for account information.
Zhao wrote that he believed the exchange appeared to have been hacked and expected customer funds to be covered. Binance had not issued an official confirmation of a breach, and neither the exchange nor law enforcement had provided a formal account of the incident’s cause. Binance.US said its platform was not affected. Bybit also said its systems were operating normally and that trading, withdrawals and user assets remained secure.
Bitcoin was reported at $78,800, down 2.89% over 24 hours. It had reached a high of $81,890 before falling to a low of $78,177.37 after rumors of the suspected hack circulated. Reported trading volume was about $26.14 billion, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.58 trillion.
Sources: Bitcoin Magazine.