$6.3 Billion Hack: World's Largest Crypto Exchange Binance Suspends Withdrawal And Deposits; Bitcoin Crashes

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has encountered a billion-dollar hack to its system, forcing the behemoth to shut down all withdrawals and deposits in cryptocurrencies on its system. The shutdown is temporary, but Binance is looking at an estimated $6.3 billion hack. However, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and others crash on Friday.

Binance Hacked

Binance faced security threats in the early hours of Friday, with different figures circulating publicly regarding the amount frozen, which went from $1.8 billion to $3 billion frozen amount.

The exchange said, "For clarity, the current verified total frozen is $2.54 billion. This figure may continue to increase as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets."

Amidst investigation, Binance flared warnings to users to remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information, Meanwhile, it temporarily suspended all its withdrawals and deposits.

As per Binance's investigation and latest update, the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorised 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," Binance said.

Furthermore, the company is estimating a total impact of $6.3 billion. It added, "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," Binance added.

The Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) is an emergency reserve fund established by Binance in July 2018 to protect user assets in extreme cases, such as security breaches or platform-level incidents.

As of 2026, the SAFU fund comprises crypto assets valued at approximately US$1 billion, held entirely in Bitcoin. The conversion to Bitcoin was completed in early 2026, ahead of the original schedule, reflecting a focus on holding a single transparent reserve asset, as per the main website.

While Binance encounters the security theft, cryptocurrencies are falling down.

Crypto Prices Today

At the time of writing, Bitcoin plunged by 3% to trade around $77,840, while Ethereum dropped 4% to trade around $2,226. Meanwhile, Binance's own cryptocurrency, BNB crashed by more than 5% to trade around $715.41. Other cryptos like XRP and SOLANA are down by 3-4%.

Also, Elon Musk-backed Dogecoin plunged 3.3%. ChainLink tumbled 4.5%, Cardano plummeted 4% and Steller Lumen slipped 2.6%.

These are among top 20 cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin dominates the market with 59.16% share, however, it has currently slipped by 0.2%. On CoinDesk, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies has declined 2% to $2.65 trillion.

The reason is Binance's hack fear and its impact on investors' accounts, which is estimated to be billions of dollars. Fredrick Collins, CEO and co-founder of Velo Data, a crypto data platform, said, "The rumoured Binance hack is definitely driving down coin prices."

He added that Binance is such a behemoth in crypto that any hit to confidence in them is a hit to confidence in the industry as a whole, especially as people have already been skittish over the increasing cyber capabilities of AI.

Apart from this, the latest Fed policy outcomes is another factor to impact cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin.

"Bitcoin fell to a six-week low of $77,646 as a reported security incident at Binance triggered fresh selling across the crypto market. The decline comes despite recent inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs. This suggests that institutional buying has not been strong enough to offset concerns over market security and weakening demand. Bitcoin's immediate support is around $76,600, while resistance lies near $78,100," said Vikram Subburaj, CEO, Giottus.com.

Furthermore, Subburaj said, altcoins have also faced selling pressure, with Ethereum, BNB, XRP and Solana tracking Bitcoin's weakness. Solana traded around $94.46, while XRP was near $1.22, down 6.20% over 24 hours. TRON showed relative resilience, outperforming several major tokens. The broader decline reflects risk aversion rather than weakness in a single cryptocurrency sector.

Going ahead, for Bitcoin, Subburaj added, "Investors should avoid panic selling or aggressive dip-buying. Consider staggered entries, maintain modest position sizes and wait for Bitcoin to stabilise before increasing exposure."

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