Binance customers have not been able to take money out of the exchange since the record hack on Thursday, October 29. Co-chief executive Richard Teng now says withdrawals should restart by Sunday, November 1, and that a full report showing customer balances are backed will follow on Monday, November 2.
Key facts
- Withdrawals: Teng said on Friday, in a video message, that Binance aims to reopen withdrawals within about 40 hours, which points to Sunday. They will only restart once the rebuilt systems pass strict testing, so the date is a target, not a promise.
- Deposits stayed open throughout.
- Reserves report: Binance plans to share early proof-of-reserves figures first and the full report on Monday. Proof of reserves is a public check that shows the exchange holds enough crypto to cover every customer balance.
- Cover for the loss: Binance repeated that it has set aside more than $6.34 billion of its own money for the roughly $6.3 billion stolen. About $5 billion of that is already held in the same tokens that were taken; the rest is being bought on the market.
A more complex attack than first thought
Binance first pointed to a single engineer’s hacked laptop. Teng now says the investigation has found more points of breach, and that the attackers used a “self-destruct” tool to wipe their traces. He said they also used a recent Ethereum feature called EIP-7702, which lets a wallet hand control to other code, to take over one of Binance’s hot wallets without going through the usual approval steps. Binance is reviewing its cloud systems, staff devices, key management and the way it signs transactions. Investigators still do not know the full order of events.
Teng says the attack hit Binance’s own hot wallet, not customer funds. A review of Binance’s earlier reserve data found that the drained wallets had been listed among the assets backing customer balances, which is one reason Monday’s report matters.
Calls for US rules
The chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Michael Selig, said the hack shows why offshore exchanges that serve Americans should register with his agency and meet US cybersecurity standards. Binance’s main exchange is based outside the US and is not overseen by the CFTC.
Why it matters
Reopening withdrawals is the real test of Binance’s promise that “your assets are safe”. Millions of people keep crypto on the exchange, and many will want to move some of it out at once. If withdrawals restart smoothly on Sunday and Monday’s report shows every balance fully backed, the damage should stay limited to Binance itself. A delay to either date would likely weigh on crypto prices again. Customers should follow only Binance’s official channels and ignore messages that offer “early withdrawal” or “account verification” links.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
