Binance has restarted Bitcoin withdrawals and begun restoring other cryptocurrency withdrawals in phases, marking a major step in its recovery from the $6.3 billion security breach disclosed on October 29.
The exchange said the first phase covers 15 networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin and Zcash, alongside selected stablecoins.
Reuters reported on November 1 that Bitcoin withdrawals were back online shortly after 06:00 UTC. Binance’s fourth recovery update said the reopening would proceed gradually as each network and asset passed security and stability checks. Deposits remained open during the withdrawal suspension.
Binance said it has now covered about 95% of the stolen assets, up from 90% in its previous update. The exchange has purchased roughly $6 billion in replacement tokens using a combination of its Secure Asset Fund for Users, futures insurance fund and corporate treasury. The remaining 5% consists of less-liquid tokens that may take longer to source in the required amounts.
The exchange said balances in Bitcoin, Ether, USDT, BNB, Solana, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and Zcash are fully backed. It has also set aside about $6.34 billion to cover the loss and says customers will not bear the financial impact. Binance plans to publish a technical post-incident report after its investigation is complete.
The FBI’s October 31 alert attributed the theft to North Korea’s TraderTraitor activity and said investigators had observed the stolen assets being converted mainly into Ether. Binance’s initial investigation pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop and unauthorized withdrawal transactions, as covered in Abijita’s report on the breach.
The phased reopening follows the exchange’s earlier announcement that withdrawals would resume after it replenished most of the stolen assets. Binance’s restart restores access to withdrawals for supported assets, but the rollout remains staged and the investigation into the attack is ongoing.
Source: Reuters.
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