Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said Thursday it was investigating reports of a potential security issue, with its founder saying the incident “looks like a Binance hack.” The company said cryptocurrency companies had frozen more than $2.5 billion in funds as of Thursday evening.
It was not immediately clear how much damage the hackers might have caused and Binance had not explicitly confirmed that the funds had been stolen, but stablecoin issuers quickly froze the funds late Thursday.
“Rest assured that user funds are completely secure,” a Binance spokesperson said in a statement.
“Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information urgently, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified the information,” the statement continued.
The company wrote on its X account about two hours after its first disclosure that the current verified total of frozen funds stood at $2.54 billion.
“This figure could continue to rise as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets,” the company wrote.
Stablecoin providers Tether and Circle each said they froze their funds on Thursday in response to the incident.
Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, wrote on X that the company had frozen more than $800 million in currency associated with the incident “in coordination with law enforcement.” Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, said on X that the company had frozen the equivalent of more than $1.5 billion in currency linked to “a potential hack of the Binance exchange.”
The price of Bitcoin fell 3.2% on Thursday afternoon to below $79,000.
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to a crime related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform and resigned as CEO. Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.
Zhao posted on X Thursday that “user funds are safe!” ” but added that the incident “looks like a Binance hack.” He added that while he no longer manages Binance, “as a shareholder, I expect all user funds to be fully covered.”
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