Late on Thursday, October 29, the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance became the target of what is likely the largest digital asset robbery in history, with $6.3 billion reported stolen.
For comparison, on October 9, Finbold Research found that a total of $1.17 billion worth of cryptocurrency was taken through various attacks during the third quarter (Q3), while the total for 2026 by September 30 stood at roughly $2.26 billion, making the Binance hack 180% larger than the nine-month total.
Meanwhile, the exchange pledged to cover all losses, and the company founder, Changpeng Zhao – widely known as CZ – was quick to declare that ‘user funds are SAFU!’
Advertisement
User funds are SAFU!
Yet, this pregnant lady 👇 pulled an all nighter, along side hundreds of Binancians.
Many industry friends and even competitors (including some previously-not-so-friendly ones) provided very much needed help. 🙏
It hurts, but we will survive. 💪 https://t.co/vQtSx4OcPy
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 30, 2026
Binance famously established an emergency ‘SAFU’ – a deliberate and playful misspelling of the word ‘safe’ frequently used in the digital assets space – fund as far back as 2018, though, notably, the fund is far from able to cover the losses on its own.
Indeed, the stash is entirely held in Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s premier cryptocurrency, and is designed to contain the equivalent of $1 billion.
Under the circumstances, the fund appears roughly $4.9 billion short, as the data Finbold retrieved from Arkham on October 30 shows a balance of 15,000 BTC worth roughly $1.16 billion.
CZ proposes selling SpaceX stock stake to cover Binance hack losses
Elsewhere, it is possible that the recovery effort will prove somewhat easier than expected, considering that roughly $2.7 billion of the stolen assets is frozen at press time on Friday, and that multiple major actors in the digital assets sector took immediate steps to make extraction more difficult for the attackers.
Either way, Binance users are likely to get refunded, with the cryptocurrency exchange commanding vast resources and having multiple ways of financing the effort.
A particularly interesting idea, shared by CZ himself in an X reply to a comment thread in which Elon Musk was involved, would entail using the company’s stake in SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), allegedly worth more than $1 billion.
Featured image via Shutterstock
Advertisement