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Binance Restores Withdrawals; Crypto Sector Digests $6.3 Billion Attack
Tom Burroughes
2 November 2026
On Sunday, , the world’s largest digital assets platform, said it was resuming the first phase of withdrawals. The exchange battled to restore operations following revelations of a major hacking attack late last week. Some $6.3 billion of funds were affected by the heist, the largest ever, and a blow to the global crypto sector. “With investigators examining the possibility of compromised employee access and state-linked involvement, the incident raises uncomfortable questions about whether traditional security approaches can keep pace with increasingly sophisticated attackers,” Phoebe Hodgson, banking and payments senior analyst at GlobalData, an intelligence and productivity platform, said in a statement last Friday. “Attackers are no longer focused solely on breaking into systems or stealing customer data. They are increasingly seeking to exploit the trust embedded within financial infrastructure, turning legitimate access and transaction processes into mechanisms for moving money,” she continued. “For financial institutions, the implications are significant. Decades of investment in cybersecurity has strengthened traditional defences, yet the growing complexity of digital banking and AI have created new vulnerabilities,” Hodgson continued. Citing her firm’s Wealth Management Industry Conditions Analytics 2026 report, the greatest threat to the wealth management industry is cybersecurity threats. Of the institutions surveyed, 65 per cent said this was their greatest concern, up from 56 per cent in 2025 (478 wealth management companies across 20 markets were surveyed in Q2 2026). Such attitudes can be relayed into retail banking, payments and other financial industries. As institutions become more interconnected and dependent on automated processes, the distinction between a security breach and a major financial loss is becoming dangerously narrow,” she said. “Ultimately, the Binance hack reinforces a critical message for financial-services leaders: the next generation of cyber resilience will be defined not by whether institutions can prevent every breach, but by whether they can stop attackers from turning that breach into irreversible financial loss,” Hodgson said. “The Binance hack demonstrates the inherent insecurities of digital asset ownership and that just as in other forms of cyber-crime, the main weakness is not the strength of the underlying cryptographic technology, but the human factor," David Bowman, a partner at London law firm DMH Stallard and specialist in digital asset litigation, said. Phases
The organisation said it has already covered about 90 per cent of the affected amount, up from approximately 80 per cent in an earlier update.
The digital-asset platform reopened bitcoin withdrawals after 14:00 Singapore time, more than two days after halting them following the breach.
As of the time of writing, North Korea is being blamed for the heist.
“Binance is preparing to resume phase one of withdrawals on 2026-11-01 between 06:00 and 09:00 (UTC),” the exchange said on X, the platform it uses for announcements. “Since the incident, our teams have taken precautionary measures to safeguard the platform, conducted security assessments, and worked to verify the readiness of affected services. We aim to restore withdrawals progressively as we complete security and readiness checks. Deposit services remain open and are not affected by the incident.”
“We understand the concern and disruption the suspension has caused. Restoring access to your funds is a priority, and we are taking a controlled approach to do so safely. We will continue to monitor closely as services return in phases,” it continued. “As we have said throughout this incident: user funds remain safe. Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users.”
As stated last week, the organisation said it has already reserved more than $6.34 billion of company funds to cover this incident.
With cryptos and digital assets being promoted as an increasingly mainstream element of modern finance, including wealth management, the episode will come as a blow. The saga also raises concerns that AI is being used for such attacks, demonstrating how one relatively new technology affects another.
"The compromising of a single senior developer’s laptop at the cryptocurrency exchange has allowed hackers to orchestrate one of the greatest thefts of all time with little more than a computer and an internet connection," Bowman said. "The fact that Binance has the ready means to cover the losses, which they would likely be legally responsible to cover given the apparently nature of the hack, is also a startling feature of the case.”
Binance said withdrawal resumption will be phased, spanning 15 tokens, including Ether and the two largest stablecoins, Tether’s USDT and Circle Internet Group Inc’s USDC.
“We are taking a phased approach by prioritising tokens based on the past week data of user demand, so that each network and asset pair can be restored carefully, with stability and security checks completed before access is reopened,” the firm said.
“During the initial rollout, users may experience temporary delays or longer processing times due to traffic volume. If a withdrawal for a network or tokens listed above doesn’t go through, you can try again after a short while. This is expected during a phased rollout. We will continue to monitor network and platform performance closely,” it said.
“Withdrawals were temporarily suspended as a precaution while our teams worked to contain the incident loss, assess its impact, restore affected services, and complete security checks. We did not take this decision lightly. We understand how important, reliable access to withdrawals is for our users. However, our priority was to protect users, safeguard the platform, and complete the necessary security checks before restoring services,” it said.