Restoring withdrawals is a necessary step towards restoring confidence, but it is not the same thing.
Binance has begun allowing customers to withdraw some assets again, according to a statement carried on the company's Telegram channel and reported by TASS. The exchange said the rollout would be phased, with an initial group of networks and tokens made available progressively. The first phase covers bitcoin on its own network, ether and the stablecoins USDT and USDC on Ethereum, BNB and the two stablecoins on BSC, XRP, ether and USDC on Base, DOGE, ether and the stablecoins on Optimism, ARB, ether and the stablecoins on Arbitrum, and TRX and USDT on Tron.
The partial reopening follows the exchange's own disclosure on 29 October that it had been hacked. According to the report, losses could amount to $6.3 billion. TASS does not say in the material provided how that figure was calculated, whether it represents customer funds, company reserves or notional exposure, or whether it has been independently verified. Nor does the report identify the nature of the breach, the assets principally affected, or who may be responsible.
The decision to restore withdrawals network by network is significant in itself. A crypto exchange's withdrawal function is the point at which customer claims become real money, and suspending it is the bluntest instrument available when reserves are in doubt. Reopening in phases allows an exchange to test liquidity and reconciliation under controlled pressure rather than facing a single run. It also signals which assets the exchange is most confident about: the list is dominated by bitcoin, ether and the two largest dollar stablecoins, the deepest and most liquid parts of the market.
The size of the reported loss is what gives the episode weight beyond Binance's own customers. A figure of $6.3 billion would place the incident among the largest in the short history of digital-asset markets, and it lands at a moment when the sector's credibility with institutional investors rests on claims about custody, proof of reserves and operational resilience. If the number holds, regulators in several jurisdictions will face pressure to explain what oversight applied to an exchange of this scale. If it does not, the exchange will face questions about how it communicated in the first days after the breach.
Much remains unconfirmed. The report gives no timetable for the later phases, no statement on whether all customer balances are intact, and no indication of whether withdrawals are being met from reserves or from new deposits. There is no account of any investigation, no confirmation of the loss figure from an independent source, and no detail on whether affected users will be compensated. The exchange's own statement, as summarised, addresses only which assets can be moved and in what order.
For now the story is one of partial normalisation rather than resolution. Restoring withdrawals is a necessary step towards restoring confidence, but it is not the same thing. The market will want the loss figure reconciled, the mechanism of the breach explained and a clear account of what happens to customers who cannot yet access their funds. Until those answers arrive, the phased reopening is a signal of intent rather than proof of health.
