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(REUTERS)
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said a security breach had resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion impact that analysts said could amount to the biggest crypto heist ever and might make investors rethink the risks of owning digital assets.
Binance said it had worked with partners to freeze the affected assets, with about $3 billion located so far. It gave no update on the status of the remaining $3.3 billion as Binance co-founder Yi He said the company would cover "all hacking losses."
An initial investigation suggested the breach may have started with a hacked laptop belonging to one of its engineers, which let an attacker gain access to one of its systems and make unauthorised withdrawals, Binance said.
Markets reacted immediately in early Asian trading on Friday.
Bitcoin dropped more than 3% to a six-week low of $76,368 and ether fell more than 3% to a two-month low of $2,178.
BNB, a token originally launched as Binance Coin that can be used to pay Binance fees, was down 5% over the past 24 hours at $709.70, according to market aggregator CoinGecko.
Shares in crypto exchange Coinbase Global slid 4.8% while those of bitcoin buyer Strategy fell nearly 6% in extended US trading.
The incident could be the world's biggest crypto heist, according to analytics firm Chainalysis and other industry experts.
"It's the biggest hack in history," said Aravind Srinivasan, head of large crypto market maker GSR's systematic OTC business.
Beyond the potential loss of assets, the security breach was likely to have wider ramifications for crypto, which had already been under pressure lately due to higher US interest rates and softer demand from exchange-traded fund buyers, analysts said.
Binance, which allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets, has 335 million registered users globally and had about $162.8 billion in assets under custody as of the exchange's 2025 annual report.
"User funds remain safe," Binance said in a statement. "As a precaution, all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our security teams conduct checks, secure wallet infrastructure, and trace affected assets, with the close support of our law enforcement and industry partners."
Binance had Secure Asset Fund
Binance runs a secure asset fund for users, which is a reserve held entirely in bitcoin that is intended to protect user assets in cases of security breaches, according to its website.
"It's becoming very hard to counter hacks as AI can find vulnerabilities faster than you can fix them," said Bernardo Brites, CEO of Trace Finance, a payments and stablecoin infrastructure company.
"My view is that users will move away from smaller and medium-sized exchanges, (it is) becoming too risky to park your money somewhere that couldn't cover a hack of meaningful size."
Stablecoin issuer Tether said it had frozen nearly $1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, while Circle froze more than $800 million.
World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, said on Thursday it had worked with cryptocurrency custodian BitGo to freeze funds stolen in what it described as a Binance hack. Binance's Yi said $27 million in stablecoins and about $2 million worth of World Liberty tokens had been frozen.
Crypto firm Ripple also froze roughly $200 million in funds, Yi said. Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, said the company was closely monitoring reports of a potential exploit involving Binance and was freezing affected funds and coordinating with relevant parties.
