TL;DR:
- Tether blocked approximately $971 million in USDT at addresses flagged by on-chain monitors.
- Circle executed the freezing of $823 million in USDC linked to the same fund flow.
- Nearly $700 million in USDT was converted to ETH prior to the issuers’ intervention.
In a coordinated action during the night of Thursday, October 29, Tether and Circle froze nearly $1.8 billion in stablecoins linked to an alleged security breach at Binance.
The measure was executed within minutes of each other after massive, anomalous transfers were detected from hot wallets identified with the Binance exchange. Block trackers indicated that a receiving address accumulated funds in USDT and USDC in consecutive transactions.
At approximately 21:01 UTC, Tether added the primary receiving address to its blacklist, freezing $971 million in USDT. Minutes later, Circle applied its blocking mechanism to the same entity, withholding $823 million in USDC.
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao stated via his X account that the movements exhibited characteristics typical of a cyberattack. In his post, Zhao acknowledged the speed with which both issuers acted to restrict the movement of the assets.
User funds are safe!
It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m).
I don't manage Binance (.com) anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered. https://t.co/oufpyNChxI
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 29, 2026
Independent estimates published by various analytics firms placed total outflows from the hot wallets between $2 billion and $3 billion during the day.
Centralized Control Mechanisms and Fund Conversion
Despite the swift intervention by Tether and Circle, blockchain records revealed that approximately $700 million in USDT left the addresses before the blacklist additions took effect.
Part of that capital was immediately swapped for ether (ETH) through decentralized protocols such as UniswapX. According to on-chain tracking platforms, one of the involved wallets recorded a balance exceeding 100,000 ETH. As the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, this asset does not feature smart contract functions allowing a central issuer to freeze it.
Market reports indicated that the incident triggered high volatility across spot markets. The BNB token saw an abrupt drop, falling from the $740 range to near-term lows around $670 within a 30-minute span, according to CoinGecko metrics. The asset subsequently staged a partial recovery.
The joint move represents one of the largest single-day capital freezes ever recorded in the stablecoin sector. Technically, both the USDT and USDC smart contracts feature administrative functions capable of restricting transfers from specific addresses. Historical records indicate that Tether has executed actions of this nature with greater frequency and higher total volume than Circle.
Toward the end of the day on October 29, Binance leadership had not issued a definitive corporate statement detailing whether the funds were tied to a third-party intrusion or an internal infrastructure reorganization. The industry remains awaiting an official technical update determining the net balance of affected capital and the contingency measures applied to the remaining balances.
