Binance’s tracked assets rose by $3.423 billion in two days after the exchange resumed withdrawals following its October 29 hack.
This is according to figures shared by crypto commentator Tuan Nguyen, with the increase coming as the exchange tried to recover from heavy outflows.
Balance Climbs After Withdrawals Reopen
Nguyen shared two snapshots, with the earlier one, from November 2 and gotten from DefiLlama, showing the exchange holding tracked assets worth $128.87 billion, after more than $6.14 billion flowed out in 24 hours. Meanwhile, competitors like OKX and Bybit, respectively, saw inflows of $450.1 million and $121.8 million to take their asset values to just over $29 billion for the former and almost $15 billion for the latter.
As the market watcher pointed out, Binance is so big that that 24-hour outflow was still more than all the assets held by the likes of Gate, Bitget, Gemini, Bitstamp, and MEXC.
“Imagine this kind of pressure hitting another exchange. Things could have turned out much worse,” concluded Nguyen.
Now, the second snapshot, from November 4, shows the tracked assets on Binance at $132.29 billion, a $3.4 billion, or 2.6%, increase from two days before, pushing its balance to more than four times that of the second-placed OKX.
Other large exchanges recorded much smaller changes in absolute terms, but Bitget’s move from $5.898 billion to $6.146 billion and Robinhood’s uptick from $14.10 billion to $14.55 billion represented much bigger percentage growth at 4.2% and 3.18%, respectively.
Nguyen offered an explanation for the jump but framed it as a hunch, suggesting that many users may have moved their holdings to personal wallets during the withdrawal suspension, and with access returned, were now sending them back. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao seemed to agree, responding to the post with a brief comment:
“Users vote with their money.”
Recovery Follows Record Theft
Binance initially halted withdrawals after suspected North Korean operatives, TraderTraitor, stole $6.3 billion from the exchange. However, it later reopened services in phases on November 1, with the first phase covering 15 networks. However, North Korea has distanced itself from accusations of being behind the incident, calling it a political provocation.
By its own estimates, assets in Binance’s charge had fallen to about $157 billion by Monday, from $171 billion on November 1, with the difference, according to the firm, coming from the hack itself, withdrawals, as well as price movements that happened in the aftermath of the attack.
The exchange’s spot trading share also fell to 42%, its lowest level in about 3 months, with OKX emerging as the biggest beneficiary of that drop, as its own share went up to around 14% based on Kaiko data.
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