CZ says Binance ‘looks’ hacked as Tether and Circle freeze nearly $1.8 billion

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said Thursday that the cryptocurrency exchange appeared to have been hacked after billions of dollars in assets moved out of Binance-linked wallets, while Tether and Circle froze nearly $1.8 billion in stablecoins connected to the transfers.

“User funds are safe,” Zhao wrote on X. “It does look like a hack on Binance.”

Zhao, who no longer runs Binance, said Tether had initially frozen about $971 million in USDT and Circle about $823 million in USDC. He added that, as a shareholder, he expected user funds to be fully covered.

Binance said it was investigating reports of a “potential security issue” and had not yet formally confirmed the cause or full scale of the incident.

Later Thursday, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said his company had frozen more than $1.56 billion in USDT linked to the suspected breach, bringing the combined amount frozen by Tether and Circle to more than $2.3 billion.

Estimates of the suspicious outflows varied sharply. Blockchain analysts tracked at least several billion dollars leaving Binance hot wallets, with some estimates reaching about $5.8 billion.

Binance.US said it was not affected.