Binance said on Thursday that $2.54 billion in cryptocurrency assets had been frozen as it investigated a potential security breach.
Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle froze related assets to halt illicit transfers, locking nearly $1.57 billion and more than $800 million respectively. Trading on the Binance Alpha platform was temporarily suspended as a precaution, while customer withdrawals were paused pending the outcome of security checks.
Co-founder Yi He confirmed user funds remained safe and pledged that “Binance will cover all hacking losses.” Former chief executive Changpeng Zhao stated on X that the incident “looked like a hack,” while blockchain intelligence firm Arkham reported that outflows began around 4:30 p.m. EST on Thursday. Binance said the frozen total could rise as it works with law enforcement agencies, token issuers and blockchain investigators.
Third-party custodians and token networks stepped in quickly to limit the damage across decentralized pools. Ripple froze approximately $200 million in digital assets linked to illicit transfers, according to Yi. In addition, Donald Trump-backed crypto enterprise World Liberty Financial worked alongside digital asset custodian BitGo to immobilize $27 million in stablecoins and roughly $2 million worth of its proprietary tokens.
The scale of immediate market intervention highlights how centralized stablecoin mechanisms operate as liquidity kill switches during large-scale security exploits. 567 billion USDT directly, secondary market tracking firm Arkham indicated that initial automated alerts flagged upwards of $5 billion in anomalous balance movements before the actual scope was confirmed. 9 percent to $704.
Source link







