Binance spends half its SAFU bitcoin to cover the $6.3B hack

Two transfers on Oct. 31 cut the balance of Binance’s SAFU wallet in half to 7,500 BTC.

The exchange tapped the fund to help pay for its $6.3 billion hack.

Two transfers six minutes apart halved the emergency fund

The address 1BAuq7Vho2CEkVkUxbfU26LhwQjbCmWQkD has seen 1 BTC move out at 14:45 UTC. At 14:51 UTC a 7,499 BTC payment followed.

The two transfers were included in blocks 973983 and 973984. Two dust deposits were detected at 18:23 and 18:29 UTC.

The confirmed balance is now 7,500.00136678 BTC. That’s about $577 million at ~$77,000 per coin.

In February, Binance completed moving the ~$1 billion fund from stablecoins to Bitcoin with 15,000 BTC left on the address. The address has seen ~32,918 BTC in its lifetime.

SAFU simply means Secure Asset Fund for Users.

Binance confirmed the transfer of 7,499 BTC, ascribing it to a partial deployment of the fund.

Binance pledges a $1 billion refill with no timeline

On Oct. 30, Binance said that SAFU and company reserves would cover every dollar of user losses. A day later, it said some of SAFU would go toward the $6.34 billion it set aside for hack losses.

The exchange promised to bring SAFU back to around $1 billion. There was no timeline, nor a figure for how much of the insurance fund was paid out.

Binance’s SAFU FAQ says it will rebalance to $1 billion if the fund’s market value drops below $800 million “due to BTC price fluctuations.” The wallet is now sitting under that line at ~$577 million.

The rule applies only to price moves. No deadline for replenishing after a hack payout.

Binance has not said how much SAFU has left or if more will go out. It has not said when it plans to refill.

According to Cryptopolitan, on November 2, Binance completed a zero-knowledge proof of its reserve snapshot as of October 31. Snapshot taken at 00:00 UTC, benchmarked against Bitcoin block 973895.

With Bitcoin at 100.04%, 10 tokens have cleared 100%.

Withdrawals resumed on Nov. 1 and gross withdrawals hit about $7.4 billion, a company spokesperson said. $2.7 billion flowed back in, leaving net outflows at $4.72 billion, or ~3% of platform assets.

The October 29 hack has been attributed to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group by the FBI but Kim Yo Jong denied the accusations.

Elliptic’s Tom Robinson said $2.85 billion was frozen or seized and about $3.25 billion was still in addresses associated with the hack.

Binance says ~95% of affected assets have been replaced. The remaining tokens are less liquid and Binance is purchasing them through market and over-the-counter trades.

A more comprehensive snapshot of reserves that covers more tokens is planned for Nov. 4. Its proof should take another 40 to 50 hours to produce.

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