Binance has reportedly already begun returning stolen funds to its users

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https://cryptoast.fr/hack-binance-restitution-6-milliards-dollars-users/

The response is being organized by Binance after its massive hack, attributed to North Korean hackers from TraderTraitor. In a press release published in particular on The platform says it continues to work with law enforcement, token issuers and blockchain transaction analysis companies to trace, freeze and recover misappropriated funds.

In its press release, Binance claims to have already set aside more than $6.34 billion in equity to fully cover the incident. Of this amount, 5 billion would already be held in the digital assets corresponding to those stolen. For the rest, the exchange carries out repurchases on the markets and via over-the-counter (OTC) channels.

An operation which, however, risks “taking time” to be fully completed according to Binance, because certain impacted tokens suffer from “low liquidity”. They cannot therefore be purchased in large quantities without causing price drops. In addition, settling OTC transactions also takes time.

Binance has begun recovering affected assets for users and continues to work with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace, freeze and recover additional funds.

The company has already publicly committed to cover losses through… pic.twitter.com/UqtBd37Fpj

Yi He, co-founder and co-CEO of Binance, clarified the exchange's strategy for restitution to users harmed by the hack. The SAFU relief fund and Binance reserves contain large quantities of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), and these assets are currently being used to repurchase “all stolen altcoins, in strictly equivalent quantities,” according to Yi He.

Let us recall here that the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), initially created in July 2018 by Binance, was fully converted into Bitcoin in February 2026. The relief fund thus holds around 15,000 BTC, or nearly $1.18 billion at the current price.

Until now, this fund had only been mobilized once, in May 2019, to cover the theft of 7,000 BTC (around $40 million at the time) without loss for users. Compared to the 6.3 billion from the current hack, however, the SAFU only covers around 19% of the theft, or around a third if we consider the recovery of the 3 billion dollars in frozen assets. Hence the massive use of the exchange's own funds.

Machine-translated from French