The cryptocurrency market came under heavy selling pressure on Friday after a suspected $6.3 billion security breach at Binance triggered fresh concerns about exchange security and investor confidence. Bitcoin fell more than 3% over 24 hours to approximately $77,400, after briefly approaching $76,000. Ether, BNB, XRP and Solana recorded steeper declines as investors reassessed the risks associated with centralized trading platforms.
The incident also prompted major stablecoin issuers to freeze billions of dollars in assets potentially connected to the attack. Meanwhile, Standard Chartered warned that cryptocurrency prices could face further declines as investigators work to establish the full extent of the breach.
Tether and Circle Freeze Billions in Suspected Stolen Assets
Stablecoin issuers moved quickly to limit the movement of potentially compromised funds. Tether Chief Executive Paolo Ardoino reported that the company had frozen more than $1.567 billion in USDT associated with the suspected Binance incident.
Circle Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire separately disclosed that the company had frozen more than $800 million in USDC in coordination with law enforcement authorities. Circle also indicated that it would continue assisting investigators.
First Digital Chief Executive Vincent Chok confirmed that FDUSD stolen in the attack had also been frozen. The company was monitoring developments and coordinating with Binance to protect token holders and prevent the movement of stolen funds.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT estimated that more than $2.83 billion had been frozen across blockchain networks, primarily involving USDT and USDC. His investigation identified approximately 1,175.5 million USDT and 823 million USDC frozen at the attacker’s primary address.
EIP-7702 Exploit Raises Questions About Binance Security
The suspected attack reportedly targeted Binance’s hot wallet, identified as Binance 14. Blockchain analysis indicated that the attacker submitted a transaction containing 50 EIP-7702 authorizations, with one successfully executed.
Our team is conducting security checks. Withdrawals will resume as soon as the security issue is fully resolved.
User funds remain safe.
We’ll keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.
— Binance (@binance) October 29, 2026
The authorization mechanism, introduced through Ethereum‘s Pectra upgrade, allows externally owned wallets to delegate certain control functions to smart contracts. The attacker reportedly used this capability to associate the targeted wallet with an external contract, enabling unauthorized transfers.
Investigators suggested that the attacker submitted multiple authorizations because the wallet’s transaction nonce was changing as withdrawals continued. One authorization succeeded, allowing the attacker to execute the operation.
The incident highlights a significant security risk involving wallet-signing permissions, as access to a wallet’s signing key could potentially allow attackers to redirect substantial balances through a single transaction.
Update: The current verified total frozen amount is around $3 billion.
Our teams continue to work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets.
We will only share confirmed figures and will provide further updates as more verified information becomes available. User funds are safe.
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
Binance reportedly traced the incident to a compromised engineer’s laptop, which may have provided access to an internal service environment. The exchange said it had found no evidence of a private-key leak.
Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group, based on its investigation. The firm estimated that approximately $6.36 billion had been transferred from Binance wallets across 10 blockchains, with most of the movement occurring within about 20 minutes.
Binance co-founder Yi He indicated that the company would cover customer losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and corporate resources. Deposits and withdrawals remained suspended pending further security assessments.
Binance will cover all losses.
As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds, and works with law enforcement.
We are working around the clock and will share a full post-mortem once the investigation is complete. Please rely only on official Binance channels for updates.
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
Standard Chartered Warns of Further Crypto Declines
Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, warned that the market could experience additional downside as uncertainty surrounding the incident persists.
He indicated that investors might remain cautious until frozen assets are addressed and investigators provide greater clarity about the attack. The simultaneous security concerns at Binance and decentralized betting platform Polymarket, which reportedly suspended international trading after hackers stole more than $2.6 million from user accounts, added to negative market sentiment.
Service Update
Deposits remain unaffected and continue to operate as normal.
Withdrawals remain paused while our team completes a security revamp of the withdrawal service and its related addresses. We expect to resume within 48 hours, and will update with further details.
The incident stems from multiple factors. Our security team is tracing the full attack path through the compromised computer which may be the entry point of the incident. A comprehensive report with the root cause will follow.
We will continue to share updates through official Binance channels.
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
Kendrick also suggested that the Binance incident could accelerate a longer-term shift toward decentralized exchanges. He maintained a bullish long-term outlook for Uniswap and retained his $100 UNI price target for 2030, arguing that security concerns surrounding centralized exchanges could encourage greater decentralized trading activity.
DeFi Tokens Fall Despite Growing Interest in Decentralized Exchanges
Despite the potential long-term benefits for decentralized trading platforms, their tokens also experienced selling pressure. Uniswap’s UNI declined more than 3%, while Aster, Pump.fun’s PUMP, Jupiter’s JUP, and Litentry’s LIT also traded lower.
Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak. We will share a detailed technical post-mortem once the investigation is complete and the facts are fully verified.
The estimated total impact sits at around $6.3B. We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with ~$3 billion frozen on-chain so far.
Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. User funds are safe. We will also publish an updated Proof of Reserves once the remediation is complete.As an immediate precaution, Binance has:
– temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks are completed;
– revoked the affected address authorisation;
– engaged law enforcement and blockchain intelligence partners to trace and recover funds.Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly. We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.
Please rely only on official Binance channels for updates. Please feel free to contact Binance Customer Support if you have any further questions.
https://t.co/ywB2mKFy0p
— Binance (@binance) October 30, 2026
Hyperliquid’s HYPE was a notable exception, gaining approximately 15% after Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a partnership with Trade.xyz to introduce Hyperliquid-powered perpetual futures trading in the United States, subject to regulatory approval.
Meanwhile, leveraged cryptocurrency traders faced substantial losses. Total market liquidations reached approximately $1.5 billion, with long positions accounting for most of the damage. Bitcoin-related liquidations totaled $468 million, while Ether accounted for another $358 million.
The Binance incident could have broader implications for cryptocurrency exchange security, institutional confidence, and the industry’s transition toward decentralized financial infrastructure.
For Ethereum, the attacker was reportedly left holding approximately 197,460 ETH, alongside borrowed wrapped Ether and smaller token balances. The remaining assets were estimated at roughly $600 million, although the full distribution of funds across networks remained under investigation.
The immediate priority for Binance is to complete its investigation, strengthen internal security controls, and restore normal deposits and withdrawals. The incident is also likely to increase scrutiny of wallet authorization procedures and transaction-signing infrastructure across the broader cryptocurrency industry.