Stablecoin issuers freeze more than $2.38 billion after Binance security alert

Circle and Tether froze more than $2.38 billion in stablecoins after Binance said it was investigating a potential security issue on its trading platform, according to statements from the companies and a Reuters report.

Binance said in a post on X that its teams were reviewing relevant information urgently and that user funds were safe. The exchange did not publicly confirm that it had suffered an exploit in the material reviewed for this report.

Issuers immobilize USDC and USDT

Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen more than 1.567 billion USDT related to a potential Binance exchange hack. Circle co-founder and chief executive Jeremy Allaire said Circle had frozen more than $800 million in USDC associated with the incident.

Allaire said Circle was closely tracking reports of a potential exploit and was coordinating with law enforcement while supporting the investigation. The issuer statements describe funds as associated with, or related to, a potential incident; they do not establish who controlled the assets or whether a theft was completed.

Binance investigates as former chief calls it a possible hack

Binance co-founder Yi He said Ripple had frozen roughly $200 million, Reuters reported. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer manages the company, wrote that the incident “looked like a hack.” Those comments were assessments rather than a confirmed finding by Binance in the source material.

Binance.US, a separate exchange, said it was not affected. Binance’s website identifies the main platform as serving more than 320 million registered users, while Reuters cited more than 335 million global registered users; the figures use different source wording and are not reconciled here.

Market reaction remains separate from the investigation

CNBC reported that bitcoin fell more than 3% and traded below $80,000 after the statements, while Circle shares declined about 5% in off-hours trading. Those market moves do not prove the cause or scale of any underlying security breach.

Sources

• Reuters — reported the potential security issue, issuer freezes, Binance statements and Binance.US response.
• Jeremy Allaire on X — said Circle froze more than 800 million USDC.
• Paolo Ardoino on X — said Tether froze more than 1.567 billion USDT.
• CNBC — reported the market reaction and quoted Binance’s investigation statement.
• Binance — company site with user-count and platform information.