BINANCE REWROTE ITS HACK NOTICE — DEPOSITS NOW “UNAFFECTED” — WITHDRAWALS STILL OFF ON EVERY NETWORK, BITCOIN AND LIGHTNING INCLUDED

Binance changed its hack notice. The first version went up at 10:23 PM ET on October 29, and Binance’s post on X that night said “all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks.” At 7:36 AM ET on October 30, the notice was updated. It now says Binance has “temporarily suspended withdrawals while security checks are completed,” and a note at the bottom says the change was made “to clarify deposits remain unaffected and continue to operate as normal.”

Binance’s own public coin list shows what that means. At 11:00 AM ET on October 30, withdrawals were switched off on all 1,447 networks it lists. Deposits were switched on for 1,049 of them. Bitcoin and Lightning were both in that second group: open to send in, closed to take out. The note on bitcoin withdrawals reads “The wallet is currently undergoing maintenance. Withdrawals for this asset will be resumed shortly.”

The wallet is easy to check. bc1qm34l…s3h, the address Binance pays bitcoin withdrawals from, held 0.374 bitcoin at block 973,833, mined at 10:49 AM ET, the same 0.37 our October 30 trace found after 18,270 coins left it. The cold address explorers label Binance’s, 34xp4v…wseo, held 248,597.59, unchanged. Binance told Cointelegraph that $5 billion of the money it set aside for losses “is held in the exact token assets that are required” and is in its custody. It declined to share wallet addresses, citing security.

A deposit to an exchange is a loan to the exchange. While the door swings one way, every coin sent in becomes a promise to pay you later, from a company that says user funds are safe and that a new proof of reserves comes after remediation, with no date for withdrawals. Coins in your own wallet never needed a notice to move. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $77,317.