Binance Customers Withdraw About $3.6 Billion Net After Exchange Reopens Withdrawals

Binance began restoring withdrawals in phases on November 1, starting between 06:00 and 09:00 UTC, three days after attackers took about $6.3 billion from its hot wallets. Customers moved quickly. The Block reports that the exchange recorded about $3.64 billion in net outflows in the first nine and a half hours, by its own count. Bitcoin.com News puts gross withdrawals at $4.649 billion and deposits at $1.01 billion between 06:00 and 15:30 UTC. Binance said withdrawal volumes fell and then levelled off after the initial spike.

Third-party measures vary with the time window and the wallets each tracker counts. Watcher Guru reported that more than $3.75 billion left in 10 hours. CryptoSlate, citing DeFiLlama, counted $2.51 billion in net outflows from Binance's tracked wallets for November 1, including about $1.08 billion in USDT. Cointelegraph's figure, which covers 24 hours, is about $4.5 billion out of Binance.

Where the money went matters more than how much left. Cointelegraph's tally shows the next ten exchanges together took in only about $368 million, with OKX receiving most of it. Coinbase gained 984 BTC and Kraken gained 1,422 BTC. By that count, nearly nine of every ten dollars leaving Binance did not reach a rival exchange. Most of it appears to have gone to customer-controlled wallets or decentralized finance (DeFi) venues, although tracker coverage of smaller exchanges is incomplete.

Binance has said it covered about 95 percent of the stolen amount from its own reserves. That claim comes from the exchange, which has a strong interest in calming customers. Independent verification is limited to the exchange wallets that outside trackers can identify.