Binance Starts Token Buyback After $6.3B Security Breach

Binance has started buying replacement tokens for assets taken in its Oct. 29 security breach, using exchange trades and over-the-counter (OTC) deals to restore affected balances in matching amounts.

Binance said Friday it had reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds for the incident. The reserve already included $5 billion in affected tokens, and Binance is obtaining the remaining assets through market and OTC channels. Limited liquidity in some tokens and OTC settlement may slow completion.

Binance co-founder Yi He said the exchange’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company holdings include Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Her post described the purchases as matching the stolen altcoins but did not state that BTC or ETH had been sold to finance them.

Binance estimated the breach’s impact at about $6.3 billion and said about $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen on-chain. Frozen or protected assets are excluded from its reserve calculation. Binance has not provided token-by-token purchase totals or a completion date, and said it would update users when the purchases are complete.