Key Takeaways
- Defillama shows Binance’s tracked assets fell from $144.9B on Oct. 29 to about $128.3B on Nov. 2.
- Binance reopened withdrawals for 15 assets on Nov. 1, but critics say hundreds of tokens remain locked.
- Binance’s zero-knowledge reserve proof is due by Nov. 3 UTC, after 40 to 50 hours of computation.
A $15.7 Billion Drawdown
Data from analytics platform Defillama shows the value of Binance’s tracked exchange assets fell from about $144.9 billion on Oct. 29 to roughly $128.31 billion early on Nov. 2. That works out to over $16.5 billion, or nearly 12%.
That total doesn’t measure withdrawals alone but also reflects falling crypto prices and the roughly $6.3 billion the attackers took from Binance’s hot wallets. Still, most of the drop came after withdrawals reopened on Nov. 1. A screenshot showed $5.95 billion in net outflows over 24 hours.
Binance’s own count for the first hours was lower and the exchange said it processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits between 06:00 and 15:30 UTC on Nov. 1. It put the resulting net outflow at about 2.1% of its $171 billion in assets, a figure Bitcoin.com News covered on Sunday. Subsequently, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao responded on X, saying:
98% choose to stay! Trust isn’t earned by what you say in good times. It’s earned by what you do in hard times.
Where the Money Went
Data shared by onchain tracker Whale Factor suggests most withdrawn funds didn’t go to rival exchanges, as Binance lost about $4.5 billion over 24 hours, while the next 10 exchanges together absorbed roughly $368 million. OKX took most of that while Coinbase gained 984 BTC and Kraken gained 1,422 BTC.
In other words, about nine of every 10 dollars leaving Binance went to private wallets or other destinations, not to a competitor. The outflow also reached mainstream news, with the BBC reporting that Binance users withdrew billions after the record hack.
Users can’t withdraw everything yet and Binance’s phase one update reopened 15 networks and 15 assets, including BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB, SOL, XRP and DOGE. Other assets “will be added once they are ready,” the exchange said.
One critic claimed only 21 of 252 listed assets were open for withdrawal. Another user complained that HYPE withdrawals remain switched off. Binance hasn’t given a date for the next phase.
The Proof Arrives a Day Late
Co-CEO Richard Teng had said Binance would publish its full proof of reserves (PoR), a report showing customer balances are backed by assets the exchange holds, by Nov. 2. Binance’s third recovery update pushed that back, with the company saying the full proof would be ready “by Tuesday, 2026-11-03 (UTC).” The reason given was as follows:
The full zero-knowledge proof takes approximately 40 to 50 hours to generate due to the computational workload.
A zero-knowledge proof lets Binance show that its holdings cover user balances without revealing individual accounts. Prominent investor Brad Feld noted the proof is now a day behind Teng’s timeline. The delay has fueled online theories about some individuals having “insider knowledge,” which Bitcoin.com News covered ahead of the expected Monday report.
For now, the only public reserve data is a snapshot from Oct. 31 at 00:00 UTC. It showed BTC, ETH, XRP, and seven other assets fully backed after the hack, but it was taken before the withdrawal wave. Other media outlets also reported that the wallets emptied in the hack were among the wallets Binance lists as proof of backing.
The proof is due on the same day as U.S. midterm elections.
