Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the world, got hit Thursday in a suspected hack that moved billions of dollars out of its wallets in a matter of minutes.
Blockchain records show one Binance wallet sending roughly 167,000 ether plus dozens of other tokens in a single transaction on Thursday afternoon, around 4:24 PM Eastern. The estimated total climbed all evening as investigators traced more of the money.
Arkham, a blockchain tracking firm, put the wallet receiving the money above $5.7 billion. If that holds, this is the biggest crypto theft ever recorded, more than triple the $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in 2025. Binance itself has confirmed no total, and counts focused on Ethereum alone land closer to $3.5 billion.
“It does look like a hack on Binance.”
Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance co-founder
CZ stepped down as chief executive in 2023. He said he expects user funds to be fully covered. Binance says customer funds are safe, its teams are investigating a potential security issue, and withdrawals stay paused until the security checks are finished. Binance.US, the separate American platform, says it was not affected.
Tether and Circle reacted within hours, freezing more than $2.3 billion in stablecoins tied to the receiving addresses. Binance later said $2.54 billion has been frozen across all assets so far, with tracing still under way.
How the attacker took control of the wallets is still unknown. The part nobody is arguing about is the scale: billions gone in minutes, out of the biggest name in crypto.
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