“There is no widespread panic”: despite several billion dollars of crypto withdrawn by Binance customers since its hack, the company wants to be reassuring

Binance customers withdrew a net $3.64 billion from the platform on Sunday, representing 2.1% of assets, in the space of 9.5 hours, after it partially resumed withdrawals. This volume, described as relatively modest by analysts, constitutes a first test of confidence for Binance after the cyberattack. “Our top priority right now is to ensure a safe environment, after which users can withdraw their funds and Binance can resume operations,” Yi He, co-CEO of Binance, said in a post on X on Monday.

Prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have also stabilized, and volumes have increased in a market where investors are still reeling from what could be the largest financial heist in history. The platform was attacked Thursday evening in a raid that the US FBI and analysts attribute to North Korean hackers. “No widespread panic or mass and concentrated withdrawal” Binance indicated that it was covering losses and that it had already raised $6 billion for this purpose from its corporate treasury, an insurance fund and a fund reserved for security breaches.

“It has not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal,” said Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, a financial services firm specializing in digital assets based in Hong Kong. “However, the blow to market confidence from this incident likely goes well beyond the stolen assets… Rather, it is security concerns that will affect the allocation levels of market makers, institutions and individual investors.” Binance, which says it has more than 335 million users worldwide and records an average daily volume of $95 billion in digital asset and derivatives trading, was also quick to reassure its customers.

“After an initial peak, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilizing,” Binance said on X, noting that $1 billion in deposits were recorded compared to around $4.6 billion in withdrawals on Sunday. No rush to withdraw Traders also told Reuters that they were keeping their Binance accounts. “I wouldn't necessarily pull everything out of Binance, as centralized exchanges continue to play an important role in liquidity, trading and market access,” said Jay Koh, vice president of the Asia Web3 AI Association, a Singapore-based blockchain advocacy group.

Binance user Ryan Tan said he was in no rush to withdraw his funds from the platform as he had already reduced his account balance significantly since the collapse of another crypto exchange, FTX, four years ago. “After FTX went bankrupt, I decided to keep everything in my wallet rather than leaving my funds on exchanges,” he explained. After hitting their lowest level in six weeks on Friday, Bitcoin prices recovered over the weekend to trade above 78.

Machine-translated from French