Early indications suggest that, once hackers started moving tokens, the entire $US6.3 billion was pulled out within half an hour. Binance announced on Monday that it had covered 95% of the stolen tokens by value through its SAFU program and resumed withdrawals. The remaining $US3.3 billion worth of coins are pinging between cryptocurrency platforms, wallets and coins as hackers try to avoid law enforcement and crypto analysis companies.
Zhao, who served a four-month prison sentence in 2024 for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, wrote a memoir while in jail titled Freedom of Money: A Memoir of Protecting Users, Resilience, and the Founding of Binance. In it, he described the process as “designed to deliver the lowest possible customer satisfaction.” The book was short on introspection and did little to explain how Binance had protected its users.
Chainalysis said about half the stolen coins were frozen by law enforcement and industry players before the hackers could exchange them for decentralised alternatives. The remaining $US3.3 billion worth of coins are pinging between cryptocurrency platforms, wallets and coins as the hackers try to avoid the watching eyes of law enforcement and crypto analysis companies.
Zhao, who was pardoned by US President Donald Trump, framed his jail time in his book as a disproportionate punishment for a minor record-keeping issue. The US government argued in court that Binance had failed to stop hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful transactions, including for sanctioned Iranian entities and drug traffickers. To stop Binance users’ stolen funds being swapped for traditional money, Zhao needs other cryptocurrency exchanges to do better at detecting malicious users than Binance did in the past.