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(Bloomberg) -- Traders have pulled billions from Binance since late last week, when the crypto exchange giant suffered the largest cyber theft in history.
Net withdrawals from the platform reached $4.7 billion by Monday morning in London, according to a Binance spokesperson. While sizeable, the outflows still represents less than 4% of the $128 billion in assets held on the world's largest crypto venue.
Binance restored customer withdrawals on Sunday after freezing them in the wake of the $6.4 billion exploit, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation has attributed to North Korean hackers. After the hack was first detected on Thursday evening, Binance worked with industry partners, including stablecoin issuers, to swiftly freeze almost half the stolen funds. The company vowed to cover the losses in full, and as of Sunday, had patched about 95% the total.
Withdrawals have remained within the exchange's expectations, the Binance spokesperson said, adding that deposits have been "steadily increasing".
The wider digital-assets market, meanwhile, has remained relatively steady in the wake of the incident. Industry bellwether Bitcoin was little changed, trading at around $78,000 on Monday.
The way Binance has so far absorbed the hit is "absolutely mind-blowing," said Karl-Martin Ahrend, co-founder at Areta, an advisory firm focused on digital assets. Some outflows and rebalancing from traders is "absolutely expected," he said, but he doesn't foresee longer-term impact.
Traders for now appear to agree. Julia Zhou, president and co-founder of crypto market maker Caladan, pointed to the second-largest hack in crypto history for context. Digital asset exchange Bybit last year lost roughly $1.5 billion to an exploit that the FBI also linked to North Korea. The incident was followed by a rush to withdraw funds, but the redemptions eventually stabilized.
"From a market-making perspective, we're also looking at net flows, whether deposits return, how trading liquidity and market depth hold up, and whether funds are moving to other venues," Zhou said. "Ultimately, the bigger test is whether Binance can maintain normal trading conditions."
On Sunday, Binance Co-Chief Executive Officer Yi He said in a post on X that not all the withdrawals have been from customers — some are transfers between Binance wallets.
The crypto market at large has faced a surge in cybercrime this year, fueled in part by the growing sophistication and availability of artificial intelligence tools.
The spate of hacks has exposed mainstream crypto platforms, decentralized finance applications and even hardware wallets, long considered the safest way to hold tokens. Hundreds of millions of dollars were drained from Bitget, an exchange, in September. Hackers also stole more than $100 million in Bitcoin from wallets secured by Coinkite Inc. devices, while tampering involving Ledger devices led to millions of dollars in losses.
The average crypto holder "may feel a bit stuck," said Nick Smart, chief intelligence officer at crypto analytics platform Crystal Intelligence. "Binance remains the dominant exchange platform despite the outflows. So even if the venue is shaken, it's far from lost."
