Binance recovers its stolen $6.3B – But U.S. authorities have frozen $2.7B already

After the largest hack in the history of crypto, Binance has announced that it has fully recovered all $6.3 billion in digital assets stolen during the cyberattack.

For those unaware, Binance initially recovered most of the stolen assets within days using company profits and emergency reserves, while the remaining 10% required additional time.

Binance makes a comeback

Well, the hack was so widespread that the operation involved more than 20,000 wallets and at least 65,000 transactions within a week, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

Of that, around $430,000 was also reportedly laundered through memecoins. Chainalysis also identified Chinese money-laundering networks as part of the cash conversion process.

But now Binance has made a complete comeback, and remarking on this 100% recovery, the exchange took to X and noted,

Once the zero-knowledge proof is generated, users can independently verify that their assets are backed at a minimum of 1:1.

It further added,

To our users and community: thank you for your patience and understanding.

This coincided with Binance publishing an updated Proof of Reserves snapshot dated 12th November. According to reports, user BTC holdings rose 0.35% to 687,900 BTC, while ETH reserves increased 1.04% to 3.48 million ETH.

Meanwhile, BNB holdings also climbed 1.03% to 42.95 million tokens. However, USDT reserves declined 3.68% to 24.3 billion tokens.

Fund sezuire scales up

However, the U.S. federal authorities and private-sector partners have frozen more than $2.7 billion in cryptocurrency stolen during the Binance cyberattack.

At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice also secured court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion in stolen assets as efforts to trace the remaining funds continue.

This further coincided with the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement of coordinated actions against North Korean cybercriminal operations responsible for cryptocurrency thefts worth billions of dollars.

In fact, one major operation, called FaceStealer, has reportedly stolen more than $400 million in cryptocurrency over the past 18 months.

Additionally, the FBI also seized cloud infrastructure used in the campaign and more than 900 webcam videos of victims.

Final Summary

• The operation involved more than 20,000 wallets and at least 65,000 transactions within a week.
• U.S. federal authorities froze more than $2.7 billion, whereas the U.S. DOJ restrained more than $1.2 billion in stolen assets.