New York, 1 November. The cryptocurrency exchange Binance on 1 November began to restore withdrawals in stages after the theft of more than 6 billion dollars, while US President Donald Trump, speaking of the FBI statement that named North Korea as the culprit, said American authorities do not yet know whether North Korea is involved, the AFP agency reported.
The exchange said on X that the first batch of networks is already open in the first phase. Binance set the window for the first phase at 06:00–09:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC); it covers 15 networks, BusinessToday said, among them Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Tron, Solana, XRP Ledger, Zcash and Dogecoin, CryptoTicker listed. The exchange ranked the networks by user demand over the past week and opens them one by one after security checks; the Bitcoin network opened first, and the exchange named no date for the second phase, Crypto.news wrote.
Richard Teng, one of Binance’s leaders, wrote that about 95% of the affected assets had been replenished, whereas the day before the figure was 90%; the ten largest tokens are fully covered, and the remaining 5% are less liquid tokens, TokenPost reported. The exchange expects the full zero-knowledge proof of reserves by 3 November, a day later than Teng promised on Friday, tech-ish noted.
Trump answered reporters’ questions at his residence in Florida late on Saturday evening, AFP reported: in his words, the authorities are still looking into what happened. According to AP and Al Jazeera as retold, he did not say the FBI was wrong and allowed that investigators might reach such a conclusion, Shattered notes. In an alert of 31 October the FBI named North Korea as the culprit and the hacker group “TraderTraitor”, the alert itself says.
What it means: For Binance customers the main thing is that money has started to flow out again, but not yet through all networks and without a date for the second phase. The dispute over the culprit runs separately: an agency names North Korea, while the head of state says the question is open.
What we know now: Withdrawals are partly open: first a batch of 15 networks, the rest as checks are completed. About 95% of the affected assets have been replenished; the full proof of reserves is expected by 3 November. The FBI’s conclusion about North Korea has not been withdrawn, and Trump’s words do not publicly refute it: he said he does not yet know. It remains unknown when the other networks will open, what the technical analysis of the breach that the exchange promised to publish will show, and what share of the stolen funds can be frozen or recovered.
Background: Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, AFP recalls. Withdrawals have been closed to its customers since 30 October; the proof of reserves shows that the exchange holds at least as many assets as it owes customers, but it checks only the balances of the ten main tokens.
We have also reported that the FBI blamed North Korea for the theft of more than 6 billion dollars from Binance, Binance set aside 6.34 billion dollars to cover losses and on the North Korean trail and the engineer’s laptop.
