Binance Reports a Decrease in User USDT Balances by $928 Million

Binance published an additional Proof of Reserves report following the October 29 hack. According to the snapshot on November 12, user balances of USDT decreased by 928.2 million tokens over eight days, while balances of BTC, ETH, and BNB increased. The exchange also announced the completion of the recovery of affected assets.

How User Balances Changed

As of November 12, Binance clients held $24.30 billion in USDT compared to $25.23 billion on November 4. This represents a decrease of 3.68%. During the same period, Bitcoin balances increased by 2,388 BTC to 687,912 BTC, and Ethereum by 35,911 ETH to 3,482,001 ETH. The volume of BNB rose by 436,746 tokens to 42,948,718 BNB.

These figures reflect client account balances on two dates, not the size of the exchange's own investments. The decrease in USDT balances cannot be automatically equated to a net withdrawal of funds: the figures are influenced by deposits, withdrawals, and exchanges between assets.

Binance Announced Coverage of Hack Consequences

Following the October 29 attack, which affected crypto assets worth approximately $6.34 billion, Binance allocated more than $6.34 billion for their replacement. According to the company, the funds came from the SAFU user protection fund, part of the futures insurance fund, and the corporate treasury. The exchange committed to restoring SAFU to approximately $1 billion.

The recovery of coverage does not mean the return of all stolen tokens from the attackers. As of November 13, withdrawals of certain assets from the platform were being resumed gradually.

What the New Reserves Report Shows

The snapshot was taken on November 12 at 00:00 UTC and covers 198 cryptocurrencies compared to 44 in the November 4 report. Binance expected that preparing the full cryptographic proof would take 40–50 hours. After its publication, clients will be able to verify the inclusion of their balances in the calculation and the declared asset coverage of at least 1:1.

Proof of Reserves captures data on a specific date but does not replace a full financial audit and does not disclose all possible liabilities of the exchange.