Bitcoin fell below $79,000 on Thursday after reports surfaced of a suspected hack at Binance involving outflows of up to $5.8 billion. Conor Grogan, a senior director at Coinbase, cited onchain data showing about $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to an unlabeled wallet.
Stablecoin issuers responded by freezing funds. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than 1.567 billion USDT. Circle froze about $823 million in USDC, according to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who remains a shareholder. Combined freezes ranged from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion.
Binance has not officially confirmed a breach. Co-founder Yi He wrote on X that the company is aware of reports of a potential security issue and that security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency.
Zhao, who no longer manages Binance, stated that the exchange appears to have been hacked. "I expect all user funds will be fully covered," he posted.
Blockchain researcher Spreek flagged the activity, which included a transfer through a contract call allegedly funded by Tornado Cash. Blockaid said it is investigating $3.3 billion in suspicious outflows from Binance hot wallets across Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche. If confirmed, the incident would be the largest crypto theft on record, surpassing the February 2025 Bybit hack of roughly $1.5 billion.
Bitcoin traded at $78,800, down 2.89% over the past 24 hours. The price hit a 24-hour high of $81,890 midday before sliding sharply after 4 p.m. ET to a low of $78,177.37. Trading volume was about $26.14 billion, and bitcoin's market cap stood at roughly $1.58 trillion.
Binance.US said the incident does not affect its platform.