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Binance said Friday that it had set aside more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover losses from its hack, with $5 billion already in held in the same tokens stolen.
“The $5 billion is held in the exact token assets that are required. These assets are in Binance custody,” a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph.
Binance did not disclose when it acquired the assets.
The spokesperson declined to disclose the wallet addresses, citing security reasons, but said that the holdings would appear in the exchange’s next proof-of-reserves report, which shows the assets it holds to back customer balances.
Binance said it provides weekly reports on its company funds to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), the financial regulator of Abu Dhabi Global Market in the United Arab Emirates. The exchange said the requirement predated the hack.
The exchange has yet to confirm which tokens it still needs to purchase, when those purchases will be completed or how much stolen crypto has been recovered.
Related: <a href="https://ct.com/news/binance-hack-security-ethereum-eip-7702-role" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">EIP-7702 didn’t cause Binance hack, but may have amplified losses</a>
The exchange confirmed Friday that it had suffered a $6.3 billion hack, <a href="https://ct.com/news/binance-linked-wallet-faces-possible-exploit-blockchain-researcher-warns" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">the largest cryptocurrency theft on record</a>. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said funds were drained from Binance wallets across 10 blockchains on Thursday and attributed the attack to North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor.
Binance <a href="https://x.com/binance/status/2116121748555153621" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> about $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen with help from blockchain partners. Those assets were excluded from the company funds set aside to cover losses.
<h2 id="certik-awaits-more-details-to-verify-binance-s-5-billion-holdings">CertiK awaits more details to verify Binance’s $5 billion holdings</h2>
CertiK told Cointelegraph that it needed more information from Binance to assess whether the claimed $5 billion in tokens matching those stolen could be independently verified on-chain.
Earlier Friday, CertiK CEO Ronghui Gu <a href="https://x.com/RonghuiGu/status/2116083223507931505" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">estimated</a> that approximately $3 billion in frozen assets and Binance’s $1.17 billion emergency fund could cover about 66% of the reported losses, leaving a potential $2.1 billion gap.
Gu said the estimated gap represented about 1.3% of Binance’s <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/events/september-exchange-monthly-report/" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> $165 billion in exchange reserves. Those reserves include assets backing customer balances.
<h2 id="binance-founders-cite-revenue-and-existing-holdings">Binance founders cite revenue and existing holdings</h2>
Blockchain analytics company Nansen told Cointelegraph that it could not verify what funds Binance had available beyond its roughly $1.16 billion emergency fund or where the money to cover the remaining losses would come from.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao <a href="https://x.com/cz_binance/status/2116097554882728341?a=PEy8msfcxBUMDlyk3ZM&amp;s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> Friday the company’s SpaceX holdings alone, linked to a $500 million investment in Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, were worth more than $1 billion.&nbsp;
Binance co-founder Yi He <a href="https://x.com/heyibinance/status/2116101170079076558" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> that the exchange’s revenue for the year was sufficient to cover the hack losses and that the company did not need to sell its stake in SpaceX.
Zhao also <a href="https://x.com/cz_binance/status/2116137390180065546?a=9YNcs-x-q7A71n5fZrw&amp;s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> Binance accumulates the cryptocurrencies it lists because customers can pay trading fees in those tokens. In a separate post, he said Gulf, Binance’s partner in Thailand, had offered financial support.&nbsp;
Zhao, who stepped down as CEO in 2023 and later <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/changpeng-zhao-binance-wealthiest-prisoner-us" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">served four months in a US prison</a> over anti-money-laundering violations, <a href="https://singjupost.com/pbd-797-binance-founder-changpeng-zhao-opens-up-transcript/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">remains</a> a major Binance shareholder. Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/changpeng-zhao" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">estimated</a> his personal fortune at approximately $115 billion.
Magazine: <a href="https://ct.com/magazine/cybersecuritys-black-october-how-to-protect-yourself" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cybersecurity’s Black October: How to protect yourself</a>

Binance says it holds $5B in matching tokens to cover hack losses

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