Binance resumes withdrawals after covering 95% of $6.3bn hack losses

Binance announced early Sunday it would begin allowing withdrawals in phases after hackers stole $6.3 billion worth of cryptocurrency from its wallets, forcing the exchange to freeze all deposits and withdrawals.

The company said it has now covered 95 percent of the stolen assets and is still working to acquire the remaining affected assets, which it described as less liquid in the market and taking longer to source at the required scale.

Binance said losses from the breach will not be passed on to users. It described the withdrawal freeze as a necessary precaution while its teams worked to contain the incident, assess its impact, restore affected services and complete security checks.

As of Sunday morning, Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits remained partially suspended, while Ethereum deposits had returned to normal and Ethereum withdrawals were partially suspended. The company warned users to expect temporary delays or longer processing times due to traffic volume.

Binance previously attributed the breach to North Korean hackers. The FBI said on Saturday that a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor was responsible, and that the group was converting the stolen assets primarily into Ethereum, with further laundering expected.

Binance said it will publish a full incident report once its investigation is complete.