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Binance Halts Withdrawals After $2.8B Ethereum Hot Wallet Hack

By Drooid · Oct 30, 2026 · How we work

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Summary

Binance halted withdrawals after more than $3 billion left its Ethereum hot wallets on 29 October 2026.
The hack moved about 167,464 ETH and 1.615 billion USDT, totaling roughly $2.8 billion.
Tether froze $1.567 billion USDT, locking part of the stolen assets.
Circle froze $823 million USDC, bringing total locked funds to about $2.4 billion.
Founder Changpeng Zhao said the incident appears to be a hack and expects full user compensation.

Summary

Binance cited its $1 billion SAFU insurance fund as a safety net for user assets after the hack.
Bybit said its systems stayed operational and user assets remained secure during the Binance incident.
Polymarket froze $2.6 million after a Thursday hack and pledged to make users whole.
BitGet disclosed a September breach that lost about $388 million, adding to recent exchange attacks.

History

The DAO launched on 30 April 2016, raising a record crowdsale that amassed about 11.5 million Ether. On 17 June 2016 a recursive-call exploit drained 3.6 million Ether (?$50 million), prompting the Ethereum community to hard-fork the chain on 20 July 2016, creating Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The incident showed how code-level vulnerabilities can force platform-wide governance decisions and influence later security debates.

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The DAO launched on 30 April 2016, raising a record crowdsale that amassed about 11.5 million Ether. On 17 June 2016 a recursive-call exploit drained 3.6 million Ether (?$50 million), prompting the Ethereum community to hard-fork the chain on 20 July 2016, creating Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The incident showed how code-level vulnerabilities can force platform-wide governance decisions and influence later security debates.

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