Bitcoin (BTC): $2B Leaves Binance in 3 Hours as Withdrawals Return

By Nodora News · 2 November 2026 · Updated 2 November

About $2 billion in Bitcoin (BTC), ETH and stablecoins left Binance within three hours of withdrawals reopening after the $6.3B hack, Whale Alert data shows.

Roughly $2 billion in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and stablecoins left Binance within about three hours of the exchange reopening withdrawals on Sunday, November 1, according to transfers flagged by the blockchain tracker Whale Alert. The flows came as Binance restarted payouts in phases after the record $6.3 billion hack on October 29, and as it widened the list of networks open for withdrawals through the day.

Key takeaways

• Whale Alert flagged about $2 billion moving from Binance to unidentified wallets in the first three hours after withdrawals resumed.
• The largest single item was 10,000 BTC, worth roughly $779 million at the time.
• Binance says all withdrawals are now paid from newly created wallets, which it has added to its proof-of-reserves list.
• By the end of Sunday, withdrawals had reopened on more than a dozen networks, with more to follow after security checks.
• Bitcoin stayed calm, trading near $78,000 on OKX, so far without the relief rally some traders had predicted.

What happened when Binance withdrawals reopened

Binance froze withdrawals on October 29 after attackers drained its hot wallets, the online wallets an exchange uses for day-to-day payouts. The FBI has since attributed the theft to North Korean hackers. You can read the background in our reports on the FBI's findings and on Binance's phased withdrawal restart.

Phase one opened between 06:00 and 09:00 UTC on Sunday, with the Bitcoin network first in line. Within roughly three hours, Whale Alert's public feed showed a run of large transfers leaving Binance-labelled addresses for wallets it could not identify.

The numbers: what left Binance

According to the Whale Alert transfers reported by BeInCrypto and other outlets, the biggest movements were:

• 10,000 BTC, worth about $779 million
• Nearly $1 billion in Tether (USDT)
• About $200 million in USD Coin (USDC), including a single 100 million USDC transfer
• 30,000 ETH, worth about $68 million

Together that comes to roughly $2 billion. It is a large figure, but context matters. Binance has customer balances in the tens of billions of dollars, and a burst of withdrawals after a multi-day freeze is expected. Some users will simply have been waiting to move funds they needed.

Customer exodus or a wallet reshuffle?

The key open question is who is behind these transfers. "Unknown wallet" in Whale Alert's language just means the destination is not tagged as a known exchange or entity. It does not tell us whether the coins belong to retail customers, large traders, market makers or Binance itself.

That matters because Binance said on Sunday that it had generated brand-new wallets, added them to its proof-of-reserves address list, and would process all withdrawals from them. Proof of reserves is the public set of addresses an exchange says holds customer assets, so outsiders can check the balances. Moving reserves into fresh wallets after a security breach would itself create large on-chain transfers. Binance has not publicly matched the flagged transfers to its new wallets, so it is too early to read the $2 billion as a straight vote of no confidence.

Binance says it has replenished about 95% of the stolen assets and will cover the rest from company funds. It has set aside more than $6.34 billion for that purpose.

Which networks are open now

Binance expanded withdrawals through Sunday as each chain cleared its checks. According to the exchange's updates on X, withdrawals for supported assets have reopened on:

• Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, XRP Ledger, Base and Dogecoin
• Optimism, Arbitrum, TRON, Solana, Polygon and Avalanche C-Chain
• Zcash, TON (USDT and GRAM) and Sui, which were added later in the day

Binance says more assets and networks will return in further phases, but it has not given a date. Users may still see congestion, slower processing and occasional failed requests while the rollout continues.

Market reaction: Bitcoin holds near $78,000

Despite the size of the outflows, prices barely moved. On OKX at the time of writing:

• Bitcoin (BTC): about $77,959, up 0.6% in 24 hours
• Ether (ETH): about $2,268, up 0.7%
• BNB (BNB): about $715, up 1.3%

Bitcoin is still below the $79,000 level it lost on the day of the hack, and some commentators' calls for a "Sunday pump" once withdrawals returned have not played out. Investors also pulled about $643 million from US spot Bitcoin ETFs the day after the breach, as we reported here. You can follow live prices on Nodora Charts.

What to watch next

• Exchange balances: if Binance's BTC and stablecoin reserves keep falling over the coming days, that would point to a real customer exodus rather than a one-off reshuffle.
• Proof of reserves: Binance has said its next reserves report will show the replacement assets. Independent checks of the new wallets will be closely watched.
• Phase two: the remaining networks and less liquid tokens are still locked, with no firm timeline.
• The stolen funds: analysts at Chainalysis and Elliptic say the attackers are laundering on a near-continuous schedule through TRON, bridges and THORChain, and any large movement could weigh on sentiment.

For now, the first day of withdrawals passed without a market shock. The next few days of on-chain data should show whether the $2 billion was the start of a bigger exit or a short burst of pent-up demand.

This article is for information only and is not financial advice.

#Bitcoin #Binance #Whale Alert #Withdrawals #Hack

This article is general information, not financial advice.