Binance is investigating a potential security breach after Tether and Circle froze billions of dollars in cryptocurrency reportedly linked to the incident.
“Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe,” Binance said Thursday in a statement on X.
The exchange said its security teams were reviewing the available information and would provide updates through official channels once details were verified. Binance also warned users to watch for scams and avoid unofficial links or requests for account information.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen more than $1.567 billion in USDT connected to the potential hack. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire separately said his company had frozen more than $800 million in USDC associated with the incident and was coordinating with law enforcement.
Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, said the incident appeared to involve a hack. In a post on X, Zhao thanked Tether and Circle for their response.
Zhao said he no longer manages Binance’s main exchange but expects customer funds to be fully covered as a shareholder.
Meanwhile, blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows a wallet labeled “binance-hacker-1029” with a portfolio valued at approximately $5.84 billion. The displayed holdings include about $1.77 billion in USDT, $1.44 billion in Bitcoin, $922 million in Ethereum and $823 million in USDC.
The wallet’s label and displayed balance do not independently establish that it belongs to a hacker or that the assets were stolen from Binance. The connection to the reported incident remains unverified.
If a multibillion-dollar theft is confirmed, it could surpass the February 2025 Bybit hack, when approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen in an attack later attributed by the FBI to North Korea.