Binance Hack of 29 October 2026

On 29 October 2026, billions of dollars moved out of Binance wallets, and Binance paused withdrawals. The same day, Polymarket, a site where people bet on real-world events, said a compromised outside provider caused a loss that outside analysts put at about $2.7 million. Binance has not said what happened.

This note reflects the evening of 29 October 2026 (UTC). Events are still unfolding, and we will update it.

Binance: withdrawals paused, cause unknown

At 20:24 UTC, a wallet labelled “Binance 14” on a blockchain explorer (a public site that shows every transaction) sent 167,464 ETH and 63 other kinds of tokens to a new address in one transaction. At 20:41 UTC, 780 million USDC left through the same route [7].

Nobody has an exact total. Unchained counted about $3.52 billion on Ethereum alone [5]. The security company Blockaid is examining about $3.3 billion, and Conor Grogan of Coinbase puts it at up to $5.8 billion [6]. These counts overlap, so they cannot be added together. Arkham, a blockchain analytics site, lists 63 addresses labelled “binance-hacker-1029” that held about $5.88 billion at 23:08 UTC, including about $1.44 billion in bitcoin. Part of the USDT and USDC there is frozen, so this is not the net loss [11].

Binance has said little. Its pinned post on X reads: “Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe.” Later it added: “Our team is conducting security checks. Withdrawals will resume as soon as the security issue is fully resolved” [1]. So withdrawals are paused; Yi He wrote that they are “currently disabled until the environment is confirmed to be secure” [3]. In its posts Binance does not call the event a hack and does not name a cause.

Some of the money is frozen. Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, wrote that Tether froze more than 1.567 billion USDT “related to a potential Binance exchange hack”. Circle’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire, wrote that Circle froze more than 800 million USDC “associated with the incident” [2]. Binance co-founder Yi He thanked Ripple for freezing approximately 200 million [3].

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) founded Binance and no longer runs it. 0xngmi, a developer at DeFiLlama, estimated the Binance loss after freezes at around $1 billion. Under that estimate CZ wrote: “Loss might be a bit higher than that, but will cover.” [2] This is not a statement from the company.

Outside analysts point to one transaction four minutes before the transfers. It linked the “Binance 14” wallet to a contract controlled by the attacker, using a feature called EIP-7702, which needs the wallet owner’s signature. How the attacker got that signature is unknown: a stolen key, a tampered signing system and an insider are all being discussed, and none is proven [7].

Polymarket: a compromised provider, again

Polymarket posted on X: “One of our 3rd party providers was compromised, and we have referred this to relevant law enforcement. Anyone who has been impacted will be made whole.” It halted trading as a precaution. A later post said trading would resume at about 3 p.m. New York time, and then that it was “fully back online” and that affected traders are being fully reimbursed [4].

The company gave no loss figure. The same 0xngmi estimates about $2.7 million for Polymarket, and says the provider tracks website performance and ran scripts on Polymarket’s site [8] [13]. Polymarket has not named the provider or confirmed this.

In June 2026, a compromised outside supplier put a malicious script into Polymarket’s site, and about $3.1 million left 11 wallets, according to AMLBot [9]. The smart contracts that settle bets were not hacked [10].

What this means if your coins are on an exchange

At Polymarket, the way in was a provider whose code ran on the site, a kind of supply chain attack. At Binance the cause is not known.

On an exchange, the company holds the keys to your coins, not you. This is called key custody: what you own is a claim on the company. Our Coinbase review describes such a service. With self-custody you hold the keys yourself; our crypto wallets section reviews wallets of that kind.

“Covered” and “made whole” are promises, not guarantees. Polymarket promised to repay those affected. At Binance, CZ says it will cover the loss, while the company itself has so far said only that user funds are safe [1] [2].

After news like this, scammers send messages about “refunds” and “account checks”. Binance’s own post warns users to be cautious of scams and not to trust unofficial links, messages or requests for account information [1]. Two habits help whatever you decide to do with your coins:

• Protect the account with two-factor authentication from one of the authenticator apps.
• Never type a seed phrase into any website. A seed phrase belongs only to a wallet you hold yourself, and an exchange account does not have one.

Summary

Billions moved out of Binance wallets on 29 October by different counts, Binance paused withdrawals, and it has not named a cause or called the event a hack. Tether and Circle froze part of the money. Polymarket said an outside provider was compromised and that it will repay affected traders. Companies promise to cover losses, but a promise is not a guarantee, and coins on an exchange are held by the exchange.

Updates

• 29 October 2026, evening UTC. Binance has paused withdrawals and has not named a cause.
• 29 October 2026, 23:08 UTC. Added Arkham’s figure for the addresses it labels as the attacker’s, with a screenshot, and screenshots of Binance’s two posts [11].
• 29 October 2026, 23:14 UTC. Binance also suspended trading in its Binance Alpha section and wrote that it “will resume once the security issue is resolved” [1]. Paxos, the issuer of the PAXG gold token, said PAXG held on Binance “were moved to the suspected attacker’s address” and that it froze 1,906.67 PAXG. It says its own systems were not affected [12]. Ripple’s Jack McDonald wrote that Ripple is “actively freezing affected funds” in its RLUSD token, in a post quoted by CZ [2].
• 29 October 2026, 23:25 UTC. Binance gave its own figure for frozen funds: “the current verified total frozen is $2.54 billion”, adding that the figure “may continue to increase”. It said it was aware of other figures in circulation, “including references to $1.8 billion” [1]. This is the amount frozen, not the amount lost.