Assalam-o-Alaikum, my dear readers. I hope you and your family are well today. I am Maryam, and I am writing this one late at night in my head, because the news that broke on Thursday night is the kind that makes phones buzz in every house.
It started with a message in a family WhatsApp group. “Binance hack ho gaya.” Then another message. Then a voice note. Then a screenshot of a chart going down. Within one hour, half of Pakistan seemed to be asking the same question. Is Binance hacked? Is my money safe? If you trade crypto, or if your brother, your cousin, or your son trades crypto, you have heard this question in the last two days. So today, let us sit together and look at what actually happened, slowly and carefully, with facts, not with panic.
What Happened on Thursday Night
On Thursday, 29 October 2026, at 20:24 UTC, which is early Friday morning in Pakistan, something very strange happened on Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the world. In a single transaction, about 167,464 ether, around 1.6 billion USDT, and more than 60 other tokens were moved out of a Binance hot wallet known as “Binance 14” to a brand-new address. The value of that one transaction was about $2.5 billion.
A hot wallet is a wallet that is connected to the internet, used for fast, everyday transactions. Think of it like the cash drawer in a shop, while the main safe stays locked at the back. The address that received the money was new, and it had been funded through a mixer called Tornado Cash, a tool that hides where money comes from. That is why experts quickly said this looked like a hack, not a normal transfer.
More money moved after that first transaction. Other Binance-linked wallets also sent assets to the same destination. Different trackers gave different totals, between $3.3 billion and $5.8 billion in suspicious outflows. But a transfer is not the same as a theft. Some of that money may have been Binance moving its own funds to safety. The exact amount that was stolen is still not confirmed. That is an important sentence. Please remember it. Many videos and posts on social media are shouting numbers as if they are final. They are not final.
The $2.54 Billion Freeze
Here is what is confirmed. Binance said it has frozen $2.54 billion in assets linked to the incident. The company said this is the current verified total, and it may rise further as its teams work with law enforcement, token issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners.
The freeze was a team effort. Tether froze nearly $1.57 billion in USDT. Circle froze more than $800 million in USDC. Ripple helped stop $200 million from moving. When a stablecoin is frozen, it cannot be transferred. That does not mean the money has been returned to Binance. It means the attacker cannot spend that part of it. The ether and other tokens that were taken cannot be frozen in the same way. They can only be traced, and sometimes blocked when they reach an exchange.
Binance also suspended withdrawals on multiple networks. The company said this is a precautionary measure and that it is working to restore services as soon as it is safe to do so. It also halted Binance Alpha trading for a time. If you tried to withdraw on Thursday night or Friday and it did not work, that is why. It was not your account. It was the whole system, paused for safety.
Is Your Money Safe? What Binance Actually Said
This is the question everyone is asking, so let me give you the exact words, not my summary of them.
Binance said, “We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating. At this stage, we have not confirmed any impact to user funds.” Later the company said, “Rest assured that user funds are completely safe.” Binance has not officially called the incident a hack. It is still investigating.
Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder of Binance, known as CZ, said on X, “It does look like a hack on Binance.” He also said, “User funds are safe,” and that as a shareholder he expects all user funds will be fully covered. He does not manage Binance anymore, but his words carry weight in the crypto world. Yi He, another co-founder, said the exchange would cover hacking losses.
So here is the honest picture. The company says user funds are safe. Its founder expects all losses to be covered. And Binance has an emergency fund called the Secure Asset Fund for Users, SAFU for short, which was set up in 2018 to protect customers in extreme situations. That is reassuring. But the investigation is not finished, and Binance has not yet published a final loss figure. So the careful answer is this. Your funds are probably safe, according to Binance itself, but the story is not over. Anyone who tells you today, with full confidence, that everything is finished and nothing was lost, is guessing. And anyone who tells you that all the money is gone is also guessing.
Bitcoin Fell Below $79,000
The market reacted fast. Bitcoin fell as much as 3.7 percent, going below $79,000, its lowest level since September. Other tokens fell too. In America, the Nasdaq 100 tech index dropped nearly 1.4 percent on the same day. When the biggest exchange in the world has a security scare, the whole market shakes.
If this is confirmed as a hack, it would be the biggest crypto theft in history. The biggest publicly known crypto hack so far was the Bybit exchange in February 2025, where attackers took almost $1.5 billion in tokens. The Binance incident, at about $2.5 billion in one transaction, is far bigger. Blockchain tracker Arkham has identified wallets associated with the suspected hacker holding about $5.9 billion in digital assets, though that figure does not necessarily mean that all of it was stolen from Binance.
Researchers are also looking at a technical detail. They are examining whether a feature of Ethereum called EIP-7702, which lets an ordinary wallet temporarily run smart-contract code, was involved in an unauthorised wallet operation. That is a theory based on transaction activity. It is not a root cause confirmed by Binance. I am telling you this because you will see the term EIP-7702 in many posts, and I want you to know it is still just a theory.
What This Means for Pakistanis Who Use Binance
Let me speak plainly about our own country. Many young Pakistanis use Binance. Some trade every day. Some keep their savings there. Some use it to receive money from freelance work online. For them, this is not a far-away story about a company in another country. It is their money, on their phone, in their pocket.
A friend of mine, a young man from Faisalabad who does online work, messaged me at 2 in the morning. “Maryam baji, Binance hack ho gaya, mera paisa gaya?” He had a few hundred dollars on the exchange. He was not sleeping. He was refreshing the app again and again. I told him what I am telling you now. Do not panic. Do not sell everything at a loss in the middle of the night because a voice note told you to. Wait for Binance’s own official update. And never, ever click on a link that promises to “recover” your funds.
That last point is the most important one in this whole article. Binance itself has warned users against unofficial recovery links and requests for account credentials. After every big hack, scammers appear within hours. They send messages saying, “Your funds are at risk, click here to secure your account.” They make fake Binance pages. They ask for your password, your seed phrase, your OTP code. Binance will never ask you for these things in a message. If someone asks, it is a scam. Full stop.
What Binance Users in Pakistan Should Do Now
I will keep this very simple, because simple is what gets done when you are worried at 2 in the morning.
First, only trust Binance’s official channels. That means the Binance app itself, the official Binance website, and Binance’s official X account. Not a Telegram group. Not a YouTube video with a shocking thumbnail. Not a forwarded voice note.
Second, do not click on any recovery link. Do not enter your password or seed phrase anywhere except the real Binance app or website. Do not share your OTP code with anyone, not even someone who says they are from Binance support.
Third, turn on two-factor authentication if you have not done so already. It takes two minutes, and it is the simplest lock you can put on your account.
Fourth, do not make a big decision in a panic. If Binance says withdrawals are paused for safety, wait. Selling everything at a loss because of fear is how small traders lose money, while patient people wait for the facts.
Fifth, think about the future. Many experts say you should not keep large amounts of crypto on any exchange for a long time. An exchange is a bazaar, not a bank locker. A hardware wallet, or your own wallet where you hold the keys, is safer for money you do not need to trade every day. I am not giving you financial advice. I am telling you what security experts have said for years. Your money, your decision. But please, make that decision with a calm mind, not at 2 in the morning.
Questions People Keep Asking Me
These are the questions I hear again and again, in simple words, with honest answers from Binance’s own statements and the reports I read for this article.
Binance is investigating a suspected security breach and has not officially confirmed a hack. Billions of dollars left a Binance hot wallet on 29 October 2026. Co-founder Changpeng Zhao said it “does look like a hack,” but Binance itself says it is still investigating and will share verified information through official channels.
About $2.5 billion left a Binance hot wallet in one transaction, including about 167,464 ether and around 1.6 billion USDT. Binance has frozen $2.54 billion in related assets. Trackers estimate total suspicious outflows at between $3.3 billion and $5.8 billion, but the final amount stolen has not been confirmed.
Binance says user funds are “completely safe” and has said it has not confirmed any impact to user funds. Co-founder Changpeng Zhao said he expects all user funds will be fully covered, and co-founder Yi He said the exchange would cover hacking losses. Binance also has an emergency fund, the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), set up in 2018 for extreme situations.
Binance suspended withdrawals on multiple networks as a precautionary measure after the incident. The company said it is working to restore services as soon as it is safe to do so. Check the Binance app or its official channels for the latest status before trying to withdraw.
Do not click the link and do not share your password, seed phrase or OTP code. Binance has warned users against unofficial recovery links and requests for account credentials. Only trust the Binance app, the official website and Binance’s official accounts. If a message asks for your login details, it is a scam.
Dear readers, I know this story is frightening, especially if your money is on Binance. Fear is normal. But fear plus a forwarded voice note is a dangerous mix. The facts, as they stand today, are these. Something very big happened on Thursday night. Binance froze $2.54 billion. Bitcoin fell below $79,000. Binance says your funds are safe, and its founders say losses will be covered. The investigation is still going on. That is the truth, without panic and without false comfort. I will keep watching for Binance’s official update, and when the final numbers come, I will tell you. Until then, keep your passwords safe, ignore the recovery-link scammers, and do not let a 2 a.m. voice note decide what happens to your money.
Take care of yourselves and your little ones. If you have questions, please ask me through our Contact Us page. I read your messages, and I will try to answer with the same care I would want for my own family. Take care.
