Binance faced a surge in withdrawals when it reopened to customers on November 1 after a hack that cost the cryptocurrency exchange $6.3 billion. The company said roughly $3 billion of the stolen funds was frozen while in transit, with Binance covering the remainder.
In the first 10 hours after services resumed, customers withdrew $4.649 billion. At the same time, around $1 billion in deposits flowed into the exchange. Binance said it had temporarily paused withdrawals as a precaution while it contained the incident, assessed its impact, restored affected services and carried out security checks. The company also warned that users could experience delays as systems came back online.
Binance later reported that deposits had started to exceed withdrawals. By November 3, however, the exchange’s overall net cash flow remained negative by $5 billion. The gap between withdrawals and deposits had narrowed, but the company was still dealing with the effects of the initial loss.
The FBI has blamed North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor for the attack. It said that, alongside the US Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation, it had observed the group converting the stolen cryptocurrency into Ether, with the aim of laundering it.
North Korea rejected the accusation. Kim Yo Jong, a government official and sister of leader Kim Jong Un, called the US claim a “sinister attempt” to harm the country’s reputation and described the alleged link as a “trite provocation.”
Sources: PC Gamer.