Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said Oct. 31 he had not threatened a SpaceX share sale, describing his reference to shares he says Binance holds as a response to an FTX comparison about the exchange’s finances.
In an earlier explanation of the stake, Zhao said the shares stemmed from a $500 million investment tied to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and were worth more than $1 billion. Binance co-CEO Yi He said the company’s annual revenue could cover the loss, so it did not yet need to sell the shares she described as Binance’s.
Binance said its hot wallets were compromised at 4:05 p.m. ET (20:05 UTC) on Oct. 29, putting the token impact at an estimated $6.3 billion. The exchange said users would not bear the cost and named its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and corporate treasury as sources to cover it. Binance reported more than $6.34 billion in response funds, including $5 billion in affected tokens, and about $3 billion frozen on-chain.
TRM Labs separately estimated transfers from Binance wallets at $6.36 billion across 10 blockchains, using token prices at the time of each transfer. The analytics firm said its estimate reflected data available at 8:30 p.m. ET Oct. 29 (00:30 UTC Oct. 30).
Binance said it aimed to start restoring withdrawals within about 34 hours, depending on security checks. It said an updated proof-of-reserves report was planned for Monday, Nov. 2.
