Circle, Tether freeze funds impacted by potential Binance 'security issue'
Circle signage during the company’s initial public offering in front of the New York Stock Exchange, June 5, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Several crypto firms, including Circle Internet Group and Tether, on Thursday froze roughly $1.8 billion worth of funds tied to a potential hack on cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
The world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes has not explicitly confirmed that it has suffered an exploit as of writing time. In a social media post, the company said it was investigating “a potential security issue” on its trading platform.
“Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating,” a Binance spokesperson said. “Rest assured that user funds are completely safe. Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information.”
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said Thursday evening in a social media post that the company had frozen more than 800 million in USD Coin associated with the incident. USDT stablecoin issuer Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also said in on X that his firm had frozen more than 1.5 billion of its stablecoin that may have been related to a potential breach.
Later, Binance co-founder Yi He said in a statement that the XRP and RLUSD-tied firm Ripple helped halt the movement of $200 million worth of funds linked to the possible attack.
But those frozen funds could represent only a fraction of those that were potentially stolen off of Binance. Crypto data provider Arkham Intelligence linked nearly $6 billion in digital assets — including bitcoin, ether, solana and various stablecoins — to 55 wallet addresses it has linked to the potential exploit.
Arkham identifies, tracks and flags crypto wallets by analyzing publicly available blockchain data. It also solicits tips from its community members.
Bitcoin — the most widely followed cryptocurrency in the world — slid more than 3% following the executives’ statements, breaking below $80,000. Ether fell nearly 4%, while solana shed about 3%.
Shares of Circle also tumbled about 5% in off-hours trading on Thursday.
