In a series of posts, Yi He, Binance’s co-chief executive, thanked various cryptocurrency issuers for freezing the assets.

“Safety first: withdrawals are currently disabled until the environment is confirmed to be secure,” she said.

Two other major crypto platforms, Tether and Circle, said they have frozen a total of about $2.4bn of assets in response to the potential Binance hack.

Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said his firm is “closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance” and that his company has frozen more than $800m in assets linked to the incident.

Circle is the issuer and co-creator of the USDC, one of the world’s largest US dollar-backed cryptocurrencies.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said his firm has frozen around $1.6bn “related to a potential Binance exchange hack.”

“Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority,” said Ardoino, whose company issues a cryptocurrency known as USDT.

World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, said it has worked with its partners to freeze stolen funds.

Crypto exchange Coinbase said it was unaffected by the incident and was monitoring the situation.

Several crypto industry observers had flagged concerns about a potential hack on Binance hours before the exchange confirmed the security issue.

Binance, which was founded in China in 2017, allows users to trade digital assets and is estimated to have more than 300 million registered users worldwide.

The exchange has been subject of regulatory scrutiny around the world.

The company said in 2024 that it has more than $160bn in assets under custody.

Bitcoin dropped by more than 4% following the alerts. The price of other major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum and Solana also fell sharply.