Nearly $2 billion in bitcoin, ether and dollar-pegged stablecoins moved from Binance within about three hours of the exchange resuming withdrawals on Sunday, according to blockchain-tracking platform Whale Alert. Binance said withdrawals are now being paid from newly generated wallet addresses, but it has not publicly matched those addresses to the large transfers or confirmed the destination of each transaction. The on-chain movements alone do not show whether the funds were customer withdrawals or internal transfers.
The transfers followed a suspension of Binance withdrawals. On Oct. 29, an attacker stole about $6.3 billion in assets from accounts associated with the exchange, prompting Binance to freeze withdrawals. After service resumed, the flow of funds became relevant both to users seeking access to their assets and to market participants tracking the exchange’s asset management and bitcoin’s price.
Whale Alert tracks bitcoin, ether and stablecoin transfers
Whale Alert’s records included 10,000 bitcoin, valued at about $779 million; nearly $1 billion in Tether (USDT); about $200 million in USD Coin (USDC); and 30,000 ether, worth roughly $68 million. The platform labeled the receiving addresses as “unknown wallets.”
Together, the transfers totaled close to $2 billion. Blockchain records show assets moving from Binance-linked addresses, but they do not identify who controls the receiving wallets. On their own, the records also cannot establish whether the transactions were customer withdrawals, wallet migrations or another form of fund movement. Binance has not publicly linked each transfer to its newly generated addresses, leaving the specific purpose of the transactions unconfirmed.
Binance says new wallets will handle withdrawals
Binance said on Sunday that it had added newly generated addresses to its Proof of Reserves wallet list. The list is intended to show wallet addresses that the exchange says hold customer assets. Binance also said future withdrawals would be paid from these new addresses.
The public information does not establish whether all the transfers tracked by Whale Alert went to those wallets. Binance also said it had replaced about 95% of the stolen assets. The exchange has not provided transaction-by-transaction details connecting the reported transfers with the recovery or replacement of those assets.
Destination of funds remains unclear after service resumes
For users who had been unable to withdraw, the resumption of service reopened access to the withdrawal channel. For market participants, the large transfers over a short period raise a separate question: whether they reflect a concentration of customer withdrawals or internal movements as Binance changes wallet addresses. The “unknown wallet” label is not enough to determine which explanation applies.
At the time of publication, bitcoin was trading near $78,000. Some traders had predicted a market rise on Sunday, but the price remained around that level. The transfer activity and bitcoin’s price are part of the same market backdrop, but the available information does not show that the movements directly drove price action. Binance has yet to disclose how the addresses correspond, and further on-chain information may be needed to establish where the funds went.