Customers of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, have withdrawn a net $4.72 billion since the platform resumed withdrawals on Sunday morning, following a hack in which around $6.3 billion of digital assets was stolen — potentially the largest financial heist in history. The figure, reported by The News on 3 November, offers the first real measure of customer trust after a 48-hour freeze on withdrawals shook the crypto world.
The biggest heist in financial history
The exchange froze withdrawals for about 48 hours after discovering the breach, leaving hundreds of millions of users unable to move their funds. Binance has since restored withdrawals asset by asset: bitcoin on its own network, ether and selected dollar-backed stablecoins on the Ethereum network are moving again, though most cryptocurrencies remain partially suspended. US dollar cash withdrawals were restored on Monday.
The FBI has attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group, in what marks a sharp escalation in Pyongyang’s crypto thefts. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs says North Korea-linked hackers have stolen $7.4 billion so far in 2026. Reacting on Monday, Binance co-CEO Yi He said in a post on X that the exchange’s top priority was ensuring a secure environment before resuming normal operations.
Customer confidence has ‘largely held’, analysts say
The headline number sounds dramatic, but Binance and analysts agree on one thing: $4.72 billion amounts to only about 2.8 per cent of the assets held on the platform — a relatively modest figure that suggests customer confidence has largely held up. The exchange, which says it has more than 335 million users and average daily trading volumes of $95 billion, also reported $2.7 billion in customer inflows since Sunday, adding that withdrawal volumes had declined and were stabilising after an initial spike.
The outflow is put into context by recent history. About $7 billion was withdrawn from Circle’s USDC stablecoin over a week after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023, and Binance itself processed net outflows of about $6 billion over 72 hours following the collapse of FTX in December 2022. Most of this week’s withdrawals were in Tether’s USDT stablecoin.
Traders interviewed by Reuters appeared in no hurry to leave. “I would not necessarily withdraw everything from Binance, because centralised exchanges continue to play an important role in liquidity, trading and market access,” said Jay Koh, vice president of the Asia Web3 AI Association. Tim Sun, a senior researcher at Hong Kong’s HashKey Group, said the episode “has not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal”, though he cautioned that security concerns could influence how much institutions allocate to crypto.
Binance covers the losses with company funds
Crucially, Binance has vowed to repay customers in full. The company said it was covering the losses with company funds and had already raised $6 billion from its corporate treasury, an insurance fund and reserves set aside for security breaches. “Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users,” the company said in a statement on X.
Recovery efforts are under way. About half of the stolen funds were held in stablecoins, and issuers have moved to freeze them — Circle said on Monday it had frozen more than $1.1 billion in USDC. About half of the stolen amount has reportedly been recovered or frozen, a development covered on UrduPro as the FBI case unfolded.
What the fallout means for crypto markets
Trading volumes rose across the crypto market as investors priced in what could be the biggest theft from a financial institution ever. Bitcoin recovered through the weekend to trade around $78,000 on Monday after hitting a six-week low on Friday, while ether also rebounded from a two-month low. But stablecoin market capitalisations have fallen since Friday, suggesting some investors have shifted into cash or traditional assets.
The pressure showed up in regulated products too: spot bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows of $643 million on Friday — the largest daily withdrawal in October — while more than $1.3 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, according to TRM Labs’ global head of policy Ari Redbord. Analysts warn the scale and prominence of the attack could curb institutional appetite for cryptocurrencies.
For Pakistani readers, the episode lands at a moment when digital assets are moving into the formal economy — Finance Minister Aurangzeb told a Pakistan Banks Association dialogue this week that Pakistan is reviewing the tokenisation of its Eurobond debt, while the Virtual Assets Act 2026 has created the P-VARA regulator to license crypto service providers. Whether global trust in centralised exchanges holds through the next few weeks will shape how fast that mainstream embrace goes.
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