Binance hot wallets drained in theft estimated at $6.3 billion; withdrawals paused

According to the event summary, the draining began at about 20:05 UTC on 29 October and touched several blockchains. Binance paused withdrawals while the situation was assessed. Early press figures varied widely, from more than $2 billion to roughly $6 billion, before the exchange's own estimate of about $6.3 billion.

CoinDesk, as relayed by TASS, put possible losses near $5.7 billion, with roughly $1.5 billion of that in bitcoin, $900 million of Ethereum and around $1.4 billion of USDT and USDC. BeInCrypto pointed to one Ethereum wallet whose token balance seemed to exceed $2.3 billion after it took in 28,005.6 ETH. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle have frozen sizeable amounts, and blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs links the theft to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group.

Cointelegraph reported that the broader crypto market fell 3.3% and BNB dropped 7%, with Bitcoin and Ether also lower. CoinDesk's headline said Standard Chartered expects further weakness.

For ETH the main channel is sentiment: doubts about exchange safety can encourage risk reduction, and stolen assets that are moved or sold could add supply. Frozen stablecoins limit part of that risk, while pending withdrawals keep uncertainty elevated.