Binance says customers can now check for themselves that their holdings in ten major tokens were fully backed as of Oct. 31.
In its fifth recovery update, published on X Monday morning, the exchange said the zero-knowledge proof for its Oct. 31 proof-of-reserves snapshot is complete. Users holding BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD or ZEC can run Binance’s open-source verifier on their own computer to confirm that their balance is included and that reserves were at least 1:1 at that moment.
What it shows, and what it doesn’t. A proof of reserves is a snapshot. It covers one point in time, midnight UTC on Oct. 31, and does not guarantee balances today or tomorrow. It tests assets against customer balances in those ten tokens, not the exchange’s full set of obligations. Binance did not name an independent auditor for this snapshot; it pointed to a 2023 third-party audit of its verifier code.
Binance says it has now covered about 95% of the roughly $6.3 billion taken in last Thursday’s breach, using its own funds. The remaining 5% is in less liquid tokens outside the top ten, which the company says take longer to buy at the scale it needs. A second snapshot covering more tokens is planned for Wednesday, Nov. 4, with the proof expected to take about 40 to 50 hours to build.
Withdrawals: the real test. Withdrawals reopened Sunday. Binance reported $4.65 billion out and $1.01 billion in during the first nine and a half hours, a net outflow of $3.64 billion, or 2.1% of its $171 billion in assets. A Binance spokesperson later told Reuters the net figure since Sunday had reached $4.72 billion, about 2.8% of assets. The exchange restored U.S. dollar withdrawals Monday and says the next phase of network reopenings is planned for Tuesday.
The fallout is reaching regulators. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission called an emergency meeting Monday with the country’s major crypto exchanges, urging them to raise cold-wallet holdings, monitor deposits and withdrawals around the clock, report and share suspicious access attempts quickly, and set aside extra reserves.
What to watch: Tuesday’s network reopenings, Wednesday’s broader snapshot, the list of tokens in the missing 5%, and whether Binance publishes a full post-incident report.
Sources: Binance on X, Binance, Reuters, CNBC, Financial Services Commission (Korea).