Binance announced early Sunday that it will start allowing withdrawals again, using a step-by-step approach.
The exchange halted all deposits and withdrawals after hackers took $6.3 billion worth of crypto from its wallets. In the newest update, Binance said it has now reclaimed 95% of the missing assets and is still working to purchase the "remaining affected assets," which are "less liquid in the market and take longer time to source at the required scale."
"Our commitment remains unchanged: Binance will bear the financial impact of the stolen funds," the firm said. "These losses will not be passed on to users."
Regarding the freeze, Binance explained that the decision was not taken lightly, noting "how important reliable access to withdrawals is for our users." The company called the measure a necessary "precaution while our teams worked to contain the incident loss, assess its impact, restore affected services, and complete security checks."
Withdrawals will be re-enabled in phases, depending on the blockchain network and asset type. On Sunday morning, Binance's network status page displayed a mix of normal, partially suspended, and fully suspended states - for instance, Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits were still partially suspended, while Ethereum deposits were normal and withdrawals partially suspended.
The exchange warned users to expect "temporary delays or longer processing times due to traffic volume."
"Resuming withdrawals is a major milestone, but our work continues," Binance said. "We will continue strengthening our safeguards, completing the recovery process, and providing updates as progress continues."
The company added that a detailed incident report will be released once the investigation is finished.
Binance had previously attributed the breach to North Korean hackers. On Saturday, the FBI identified a North Korean group called TraderTraitor as the culprit, noting the group was mainly converting the stolen assets into Ethereum, with further laundering likely.
