Hitting Wallets: How Binance Will Cover Losses from the Largest Crypto Breach
Binance compensates users for losses as soon as possible, although the return of billions stolen from the exchange may take months or years. According to experts interviewed by Izvestia, it will be possible to return about 50-60% of the stolen, and the company will have to cover the rest from its own funds. As a result of a record hacker attack, $6.3 billion was withdrawn from the site, of which about $3 billion was frozen. The crypto exchange left the Russian Federation in 2023, but some Russians continued to use Binance. What will happen to their money, how the clients of other sites are protected and what to expect from the market after such a shock is in the Izvestia article.
How long will refunds take?
On the night of October 30th, Binance, the largest crypto exchange, was hacked. According to the company, about $6.3 billion was stolen, of which $3 billion was frozen. According to the preliminary version, the criminals hacked the engineer's laptop, penetrated the infrastructure and sent withdrawal requests. TRM Labs analysts link the theft to the North Korean group TraderTraitor, which is believed to be involved in the hacking of Bybit for $ 1.5 billion in February 2025.
In response to a request from Izvestia, Binance referred to its previously published statement on covering losses with its own funds. The release stated that the exchange had already begun to restore affected customer assets and had reserved more than $6.34 billion. Of these, $5 billion is in the same tokens that were stolen. She buys the rest on the market and through over-the-counter transactions. This takes time: some coins are difficult to purchase quickly, and calculations do not take place immediately, the company explained. The frozen $3 billion is not included in this reserve — their return and verification are ongoing.
If the disclosed amounts are confirmed, the funds will be enough to cover the damage, said Kirill Pistsov, head of Product development at Finam. However, so far this is a statement from the site, and not an independent audit of its finances. Binance had previously set an estimated deadline for resuming withdrawals of 48 hours, the expert recalled. However, this plan does not set a time for the completion of compensation.
The return of assets to affected users will take place in the shortest possible period, says Andrey Loboda, a member of the expert council on the development of the over-the-counter financial market at the Forex Dealers Association. He believes that there is no reason to doubt the stability of Binance yet. However, until the investigation is completed, you should not expect quick compensation, the founder of Rodin objects.Capital Alexey Rodin.
At the same time, customers do not have to wait for the end of recovery of stolen goods: the exchange can restore collateral at its own expense earlier, Kirill Pistsov emphasized. Therefore, the terms of compensation to users and the return of stolen goods to the site itself may vary significantly.
Freedom Global analyst Vladimir Chernov believes that regaining control of the stolen assets will take from several weeks to many months. According to his estimates, in the end it will be possible to return about 50-60% of the stolen, and the company will have to cover the rest from its own funds.
Even assets that have already been frozen cannot be immediately allocated for payments. Legal procedures can take from several months to a year or more, explains the Associate Professor of Finance of Sustainable Development at the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanova Maria Ermilova. Alexey Voylukov, an MBA professor of business practice in digital finance at the Presidential Academy, admits that the return of stolen goods will take years, and some of the funds will not be recovered.
The SAFU user protection fund alone is not enough to cover such damage, the expert added. It was created by Binance in 2018. In the February report of the cryptocurrency exchange, its volume was estimated at about $1 billion, so the main burden will fall on the company's own resources.
Will the money be returned to the Russians
In September 2023, Binance announced its withdrawal from Russia and the sale of its local business to the CommEX exchange. But in September 2024, a representative of the exchange announced that it continues to serve a limited number of former Russian customers, complying with sanctions.
In a response to Izvestia, the site did not specifically explain the terms of compensation for Russians after the hack. There is no exception for citizenship in the company's general statement, Kirill Pistsov from Finam noted. But without detailed regulations, it is still impossible to guarantee everyone the same procedure.
According to the expert, the servicing legal entity, the contract and the confirmation of account ownership are important. Sanctions and verification of the origin of funds may complicate the transfer, but stopping the operation does not mean the loss of the right to demand a refund. The damage must be related to the attack — a drop in the value of the portfolio, the forced closure of a position with borrowed funds, or the transfer of money to fraudsters are not automatically compensated.
The website traffic data does not mention either the citizenship of the clients or their savings, said Rufat Abyasov, founder of GBIG Holdings. Theft from shared wallets also does not mean debiting from all user accounts, Kirill Pistsov adds.
Experts advise clients, first of all, not to panic and wait for the results of the investigation and explanations of the exchange — Alexey Rodin focuses on this. It is worth saving statements, transaction history and correspondence with support, added Rufat Abyasov. Kirill Pistsov warned that it is impossible to pay for the activation of compensation and transfer passwords, confirmation codes and secret phrases of wallet recovery to intermediaries.
How are clients of other exchanges protected
Large platforms have several levels of protection, explains Denis Astafyev, fund manager and founder of the SharesPro fintech platform. These include storing a significant portion of funds off the Internet, confirming large transfers with multiple keys, and monitoring suspicious transactions. But such measures do not provide absolute security.
Criminals use not only software errors, but also deception of employees or the introduction of their people into the staff, said Fyodor Ivanov, director of the analytics department at Shard. Therefore, the reliability of the system is fully demonstrated in a real incident.
In a report on September 23, 2026, the large Bybit crypto exchange announced coverage of obligations for all 50 verified tokens by at least 100%: for bitcoin — 104%, ether — 103%, USDT — 110%. This means that there were at least as many cryptocurrencies in the wallets of the exchange as there were in the accounts of customers. According to the exchange, the check was carried out by Hacken.
On October 30, another OKX exchange also announced coverage of all 22 assets in the report by at least 100%. For bitcoin, the figure was 110%, for ether — 100%. Its Security Fund is designed to cover the deficit in case of forced closure of leveraged positions, follows from the rules of the site. It cannot be equated with insurance against a hacker attack.
Bitget has activated a separate Protection Fund to cover the consequences of the September 24 attack with about $388 million in damage, the exchange said in a statement. A little later, she announced that the fund had been replenished to over $300 million, emphasizing that client balances had been preserved. The Protection Fund is separate from the reserves for user funds.
The reserve reports — Proof of Reserves — help assess asset security, but do not protect against attack, notes Denis Astafyev from SharesPro. According to him, the composition of the financial cushion is also important — in a crisis, not all assets can be quickly converted into money for payments.
Such experience should be taken into account in the development of the Russian crypto market, said Evgeny Masharov, deputy chairman of the Public Chamber Commission for public control and handling of citizens' appeals. In his opinion, for participants working under the supervision of the Central Bank, it is worth considering the creation of a compensation fund and increasing the requirements for their own funds.
How the market reacted
Against the background of reports of the attack, the largest cryptocurrencies have fallen in price. Bitcoin dropped to $76.4 thousand. — the minimum in six weeks, and ether (Ethereum) — up to $ 2.2 thousand, the lowest level in two months. Then the market stabilized. The BNB cryptocurrency created by Binance, which can be used to pay commissions on the site, lost about 5% per day and cost about $710. Securities of the American crypto exchange Coinbase fell by 4.8%, and Strategy, which invests in bitcoin, fell by almost 6% after the close of the main trading session in the United States, Reuters reported.
At the same time, the market was already under pressure from high interest rates in the United States and weakening demand for cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds, the agency noted. In the next four weeks, sharp price fluctuations may intensify, predicts Maria Ermilova from the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanov. On the horizon of one to six months, she expects clients to leave small and less secure sites for large ones, as well as an increase in interest in storing cryptocurrencies in personal wallets.
Restoring the withdrawal and confirming Binance's reserves can ease the tension, and delays can increase the outflow from exchanges and price fluctuations, Kirill Pistsov from Finam believes. Andrey Loboda, a member of the expert council at the Forex Dealers Association, also expects increased cyber protection and increased demand for vulnerability specialists.
Sharp movements in quotes may persist even after Binance's problems are resolved, according to Bitbanker financial analyst Andrey Poroshin. An additional factor of uncertainty is the midterm elections to the US Congress on November 3. Their results can influence the regulation of digital assets, but the reaction of investors will depend on specific initiatives and the alignment of political forces.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
