Circle and Tether freeze stablecoins tied to Binance breach as exchange pledges to cover customer losses

Binance's press service put the total damage from the incident at about $6.3 billion. According to reports, the exchange said roughly $3 billion of the affected funds has been frozen across blockchain networks and that withdrawals were suspended. Co-CEO Yi He said the platform would cover all customer losses. Preliminary findings suggest the attack began when a laptop used by one of the exchange's DevOps engineers was compromised.

Circle and Tether, the issuers of USDC and USDT, froze stablecoin holdings connected to the case. Early reports cited nearly $900 million frozen by Circle and about $1.8 billion across both issuers, though these figures were not verified in detail. Other media estimates of the stolen amount ranged from $5.6 billion to $5.9 billion.

Blockchain investigators say North Korea's Lazarus Group is the probable culprit, although attribution is not final. Reports also describe funds moving to addresses financed through Tornado Cash.

Markets reacted negatively: bitcoin fell more than 3% to below $80,000, and Circle shares dropped about 5% in off-hours trading. Institutional investors are reportedly pulling assets from centralized exchanges while rebalancing trading books. Freezes can limit the attackers' ability to cash out, but sentiment will likely depend on how much of the money is actually returned.