Binance said early on Sunday that it would begin allowing withdrawals again in a phased process, after freezing all deposits and withdrawals when hackers stole $6.3 billion worth of crypto from its wallets.
In its latest update, the exchange said it has now covered 95% of the stolen assets and is still working to buy the remaining affected assets, which it described as less liquid in the market and requiring longer to source at the needed scale. The company said its commitment remains unchanged and that Binance will bear the financial impact of the stolen funds, adding that the losses will not be passed on to users.
Binance said the withdrawal freeze was not a decision it took lightly, given how important reliable access to withdrawals is for its users, but described it as a necessary precaution while teams worked to contain the incident loss, assess its impact, restore affected services and complete security checks.
Withdrawals are returning in stages depending on network and asset type. As of Sunday morning, the company's network status page showed a mixture of normal, partially suspended and fully suspended statuses: Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits were still listed as partially suspended, while Ethereum deposits were normal and Ethereum withdrawals partially suspended. Binance also warned users to expect temporary delays or longer processing times because of traffic volume.
"Resuming withdrawals is a major milestone, but our work continues," the company said, adding that it will keep strengthening its safeguards, finish the recovery process and provide updates as progress is made. It also plans to publish a more in-depth incident report once its investigation is complete.
Binance had previously blamed North Korean hackers for the breach. On Saturday, the FBI said a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor was responsible and that the group was converting the assets primarily into Ethereum, with further laundering likely.
Sources: TechCrunch.