More than $2 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and tokens left Binance hot wallets on Thursday for an address created hours earlier and funded via Tornado Cash, according to Etherscan data. Binance did not specify whether customer deposits were at risk.
The money in these wallets belongs to Binance users, and a confirmed theft would dwarf the $387 million Bitget hack in September. If it was routine maintenance, the exchange moved its reserves along a path that mirrors the way hackers cover their tracks.
What the blockchain shows
On October 29 at 8:24 p.m. UTC, a transaction moved 167,464 ETH, worth approximately $388 million according to Etherscan’s valuation, out of the wallet labeled Binance 14. It also pushed 63 tokens to the receiving address, including approximately $1.6 billion in Tether (USDT).
A second exchange wallet, Binance 16, sent an additional 28,005 ETH to the same address 24 seconds later.
The receiving address did not exist before Thursday. In 15 minutes, he transferred 195,460 ETH, or approximately $450 million, to another new address while holding approximately $1.5 billion in tokens.
The transfer was triggered by a wallet funded solely through Tornado Cash, a mixing service that hides the provenance of coins. This wallet made three deposits of approximately 0.1 ETH on October 28 and 29.
Theft or cleaning?
A hot wallet is a wallet that an exchange keeps online to pay for withdrawals, and the exchanges mix funds among themselves. Spreek, a pseudonymous on-chain researcher, reported the transfer on X.
“This COULD be routine wallet maintenance, but it seems extremely suspicious”
Tree News, a market alert feed, estimated the outflow at around $2.53 billion across more than 60 tokens and called it a suspected key compromise, meaning someone other than Binance may control the wallet.
Two details weigh against the maintenance reading. A transfer executed by Binance has no reason to start from a mixed wallet. The receiving address also split the funds all at once, a pattern seen in the Bitget hack timeline after the stolen coins moved.
Whose money is at stake
Binance keeps customer assets in these wallets, so a confirmed key compromise would test whether its emergency reserve fund can absorb a loss of this magnitude.
A Binance spokesperson told BeInCrypto via email that the exchange was “aware of reports of a potential security issue” and was investigating, adding that it had “not confirmed any impact to user funds” and would release updates through official channels.
Update (October 30, 00:30 UTC): Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on Tether Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT related to the incident, and Zhao estimated Circle’s USDC freeze at nearly $823 million. Users have also reported withdrawals being blocked while being processed.
Read original story Is Binance Hacked? $2 billion outflow calls customer funds into question by Lockridge Okoth on beincrypto.com
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