Binance and rivals lock additional $2.4bn as hack probe widens

UPDATE - follow-up to Crypto giant Binance freezes $2.5bn of assets over suspected hack: Binance announced that the frozen assets total has risen as its security teams continue tracing funds, and that deposits and withdrawals remain halted. The exchange said more than $2.5bn in digital assets are locked while it works with law‑enforcement partners, promising to cover all user losses. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao called the incident a hack, and noted the firm will share a full post‑mortem after the probe. Tether and Circle have each frozen assets tied to the same threat, about $1.6bn and $800m respectively, bringing the combined freeze by rival platforms to roughly $2.4bn. Binance warned that the frozen amount could climb further as investigations proceed. The company assured users that funds are safe and urged reliance on official channels. Bitcoin slipped about 5% after the alerts, with Ethereum and Solana also falling sharply. Industry observers had raised hack concerns hours before Binance confirmed the breach. The episode follows a 2025 Bybit hack that stole $1.5bn and was linked to North Korea. ## Context Binance is the world’s biggest crypto exchange by daily volume; Tether issues USDT and Circle issues USDC, two of the largest dollar‑backed tokens.