North Korea denies Binance hack as outflows top $4.7B

Binance customers withdrew a net $3.64 billion after the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange reopened withdrawals on Sunday, Nov. 1. Withdrawals had been frozen since a $6.3 billion theft that the FBI has blamed on North Korea. The exchange said the outflow was about 2.1% of its assets and that withdrawals were stabilising after an early rush. It also said it had already covered about 95% of the stolen assets with company money, Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 6.40% reported.reuters.com

Between 06:00 and 15:30 UTC on Nov. 1, Binance said, "we processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits, resulting in a net outflow of approximately $3.64 billion". "After an initial spike, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilising as expected, while deposit volumes have remained substantial," the exchange added.independent.co.uk+1

Outflows keep climbing

The total grew after that first update. By Monday morning in London, net withdrawals had reached $4.7 billion, a Binance spokesperson said. That is less than 3% of the $166 billion in assets the exchange holds, and the spokesperson said deposits were "steadily increasing". Binance also reported $2.7 billion in customer inflows since Sunday. The analytics platform DefiLlama showed a higher outflow figure of $5.81 billion.charlotteobserver.com+2

Withdrawals are coming back in stages. The first phase covered 15 networks and assets, including Bitcoin ↗ 3.89% and Ethereum ↗ 6.63%. On Monday, Binance added more networks and restored fiat withdrawals in several currencies, including U.S. dollars.finance.yahoo.com+1

How Binance covered the losses

To replace the stolen tokens, Binance bought new ones using money from three sources. These were its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a bitcoin reserve kept to protect customers after security breaches, plus part of its Futures Insurance Fund and its corporate treasury. Co-CEO Yi He said Binance would use 50% of the SAFU fund and refill it to about $1 billion afterwards. The remaining assets may take longer to source.bbc.co.uk+1

Pyongyang rejects FBI attribution

Most of the theft took place over about 20 minutes beginning late on Thursday, Oct. 29. Binance said an engineer's laptop was the likely entry point. On Saturday, the FBI named the North Korean state-sponsored group TraderTraitor as responsible. The same group was behind the $1.5 billion hack of the exchange Bybit last year. Separately, Circle ↗ 1.20% froze more than $1.1 billion in USDC USD Coin.usnews.com+3

On Tuesday in Pyongyang, North Korea denied any role. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, called the US claim "absurd rhetoric and nothing new" in a statement carried by the state news agency KCNA. President Donald Trump has also questioned the attribution, telling reporters on Saturday, "We don't know if it's North Korea".france24.com+1