Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, has assured its users that it has set aside $6.34 billion to cover funds stolen by hackers and that its suspended withdrawal service will be restored within 34 hours.
The crypto trading giant gave its users, known as Binancians, the assurance in a statement, 24 hours after its hot wallets were compromised, resulting in a loss of approximately $6.3 billion worth of token assets.
“We want to be clear about our commitment: Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users,” Binance said.
It added, “Our first priority is to ensure that users are protected. Binance will cover all stolen funds related to this incident through our Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and our corporate treasury.”
The crypto trading platform said it had “already set aside more than $6.34B in company funds, with $5B held in the exact impacted token assets that were stolen, such as USDC, USDT, BTC, ETH, BNB, etc.”
It added, “This means that we have already covered approximately 80% of the impacted amount. We are actively buying the remaining relevant token assets through market and OTC channels. We will continue to provide updates on the progress on our official channels.”
Binance took responsibility for the attack, which forced it to halt withdrawals and deposits, adding: “Our tech and security teams are still deep in the investigations of this complex hack. Our initial investigation suggested that the incident may involve a compromised laptop, however, our subsequent investigation has uncovered additional points of breach.”
“We expect to share further technical findings within about 48 hours once they have been verified and their disclosure will not compromise ongoing investigative efforts,” Binance said.
It added, “The tech team targets to start resuming the withdrawal service within approximately 34 hours, subject to the completion of security checks. This will proceed on a phased approach. We will provide updates as each phase becomes available.”
