By Yunus Abubakar
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by market capitalisation, says it will begin restoring withdrawal services in phases from November 1, after replacing 95 per cent of funds affected by a security breach.
The exchange disclosed this in its fourth recovery update published on X on Sunday.
It said deposits remained open and were not affected by the incident.
According to Binance, the first phase of the withdrawal restoration would commence between 6am and 9am Coordinated Universal Time, with additional networks and digital assets to be reopened after security and operational checks.
The company said the phased restoration was designed to ensure that affected services returned without compromising the security of users’ funds.
“We are taking a phased approach by prioritising tokens based on the past week data of user demand, so that each network and asset pair can be restored carefully, with stability and security checks completed before access is reopened,” Binance said.
The exchange, however, warned that users might experience delays during the initial restoration because of increased traffic.
It advised customers whose withdrawal requests failed during the process to try again after some time.
Binance also disclosed that it had covered approximately 95 per cent of the funds affected by the security incident, representing an increase from the 90 per cent reported in its previous update.
It attributed the outstanding five per cent to tokens outside the top 10 cryptocurrencies, which it said were less liquid and more difficult to source in the required quantities.
“We continue purchasing the remaining affected assets through market and OTC channels,” the company stated.
The exchange further assured customers that balances in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, BNB, Solana, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and Zcash were fully backed.
Binance said it initially suspended withdrawals as a precautionary measure to contain the incident, assess its impact and allow security teams to complete necessary investigations.
“We did not take this decision lightly. We understand how important reliable access to withdrawals is for our users,” it said.
“However, our priority was to protect users, safeguard the platform, and complete the necessary security checks before restoring services.”
The company said its response included enhanced security reviews of affected services, an assessment of its withdrawal infrastructure and collaboration with law enforcement agencies and industry partners to trace and recover stolen funds.
It added that affected assets were being replenished using company resources.
Reassuring customers that they would not bear the financial consequences of the breach, Binance said it would absorb the losses arising from the stolen funds.
“As we have said throughout this incident: user funds remain safe. Binance will absorb the financial impact of the stolen funds, not our users,” it said.
The exchange also promised to release a detailed post-incident report after the investigation had been concluded.
It said it would continue strengthening its security measures, completing the recovery process and monitoring its platform as withdrawal services gradually returned
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