Binance Taps Half Its SAFU Bitcoin as Reserve Verification Goes Live

Published November 2, 2026, 8:15 PM PKT. Based on Cointelegraph's November 2, 2026 report on Binance's SAFU transfer and reserve verification, and Reuters' November 2, 2026 report on Binance's cumulative withdrawal figures.

Binance has now shown, in on-chain balances, what covering the largest crypto theft on record is costing its emergency fund. The exchange confirmed a transfer of 7,499 Bitcoin (BTC) on Saturday, October 31, 2026, linking it to the partial deployment of its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), Cointelegraph reported on November 2. As of Monday, the publicly disclosed SAFU Bitcoin wallet held about 7,500 BTC, worth $583 million, down from about 15,000 BTC before the transfer, according to Cointelegraph's report on the wallet data. The transfer is one piece of a larger coverage effort: Binance said on Sunday, November 1, that it had replenished approximately 95% of the affected assets, up from 90% a day earlier, and that it continued buying the remaining, less-liquid tokens through market and over-the-counter transactions, Cointelegraph reported. The exchange is using its corporate treasury, SAFU and part of its futures insurance fund to cover the losses from the October 29 theft of about $6.3 billion in crypto assets, which the FBI attributed on Saturday to North Korea's TraderTraitor group. MABOnChain has covered the hack, the withdrawal reopening and the 95% coverage figure in full in earlier articles.

The SAFU wallet, cut in half, with no replenishment deadline

The halved SAFU Bitcoin balance is the first public measure of how much of the emergency fund has actually been spent, rather than pledged. Binance's SAFU policy outlines regular monitoring and rebalancing of the fund's market value, Cointelegraph reported, quoting the policy: if the fund's market value falls below $800 million due to Bitcoin price fluctuations, Binance will rebalance the fund to restore its value to $1 billion. The policy does not specify a timeline for replenishing funds withdrawn following a security incident, Cointelegraph reported. Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph's questions about SAFU's remaining reserves, further deployments and plans to replenish the fund. That silence matters because the $583 million remaining in the disclosed Bitcoin wallet is only the Bitcoin slice of SAFU, not the fund's total across assets, and because Binance has previously said it raised $6 billion from its corporate treasury, an insurance fund and reserves set aside for security breaches, according to Reuters. The two figures describe different things, a single disclosed wallet balance on one side and a company-wide funding total on the other, and neither, on its own, proves how much of the stolen $6.3 billion has been permanently replaced versus temporarily covered.

The reserve verification users can now check

Alongside the SAFU disclosure, Binance said on Monday that users can now verify their balances against its Saturday proof-of-reserves snapshot after it completed the accompanying cryptographic proof, Cointelegraph reported. The exchange said the snapshot showed customer holdings in 10 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether and USDT, were backed at least 1:1. The exchange plans to take another snapshot covering more tokens on Wednesday, with the accompanying proof expected to take another 40 to 50 hours to generate, Cointelegraph reported. The full zero-knowledge proof, first promised for Monday, is now due by Tuesday, November 3, according to Bitcoin.com's November 2 report, which attributed the delay to the 40 to 50 hours of computation the proof requires. The distinction is worth stating plainly: what went live on Monday is verification for a Saturday snapshot covering 10 assets, not the full zero-knowledge proof covering the wider token list, which is still pending. The snapshot itself was taken on October 31 at 00:00 UTC, before the withdrawal wave began, according to Bitcoin.com, so it shows backing before Sunday's outflows, not after them. A snapshot taken on Wednesday will be the first to reflect the post-reopening balance sheet.

The $4.72 billion outflow test, and what held

The other Monday number is the customer verdict so far. Customers have withdrawn a net $4.72 billion since the suspension was lifted on Sunday morning, a Binance spokesperson told Reuters on November 2. Binance said the net outflow amounted to about 2.8% of assets on the platform, a relatively modest figure that analysts said suggested customer confidence had largely held up, Reuters reported. A spokesperson said there had been $2.7 billion in inflows over the same period, and Binance said on X that after an initial spike, withdrawal volumes have declined and are stabilising, according to Reuters. The $4.72 billion cumulative figure extends the first-day figure MABOnChain already reported, $3.64 billion in net outflows in the first nine and a half hours after reopening, and the two are different reporting windows, not conflicting estimates. For scale, Reuters noted the outflow compares with about $7 billion withdrawn from Circle's USDC stablecoin over a week after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023, and about $6 billion in net outflows Binance itself processed over 72 hours after the collapse of FTX in December 2022. Binance said withdrawals had resumed for Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network and for Ether and some dollar stablecoins on the Ethereum network, though its website still showed withdrawals remained partially suspended for most cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported, and it restored US dollar cash as a withdrawal option on Monday. Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, told Reuters the episode had not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal, but that security concerns were likely to influence how much market makers, institutions and other investors allocate to cryptocurrencies. The next dated tests are now clear: the Wednesday snapshot, the full zero-knowledge proof due November 3, and a Phase Two withdrawal schedule, which Binance has still not dated.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Binance, Saturday, October 31, 2026 SAFU transfer confirmation and Monday, November 2, 2026 reserve verification statement (primary source: the 7,499 BTC transfer, the Saturday proof-of-reserves snapshot covering 10 cryptocurrencies backed at least 1:1, and the Wednesday snapshot plan, as reported by Cointelegraph)
• Cointelegraph, Binance Taps Half Its SAFU Bitcoin, Releases Reserve Proof (November 2, 2026, secondary source: about 7,500 BTC worth $583 million remaining in the disclosed SAFU Bitcoin wallet versus about 15,000 BTC before, 95% replenishment up from 90%, continued market and over-the-counter buying, SAFU $800 million and $1 billion rebalancing policy with no replenishment timeline, no immediate Binance response on remaining reserves or replenishment plans, Wednesday snapshot plus 40 to 50 hours for proof)
• Reuters, via Kitco, Binance says customers pulled net $4.7 billion after hack as crypto world weighs risk (November 2, 2026, secondary source: $4.72 billion cumulative net outflows since Sunday, about 2.8% of platform assets, $2.7 billion in inflows, withdrawals declining and stabilising, Yi He X statement, 335 million users, $95 billion average daily trading volume, $6 billion raised from treasury, insurance fund and security reserves, US dollar cash withdrawal option restored Monday, most cryptocurrencies still partially suspended, TRM Labs $7.4 billion in 2026 North Korea-linked thefts, Circle freezing more than $1.1 billion in USDC)
• Bitcoin.com, Binance Has Shed $16B Since The Hack as Its Proof Lands Tuesday (November 2, 2026, secondary source: full zero-knowledge proof due by November 3, 40 to 50 hours of computation, October 31 snapshot timing, DefiLlama tracked assets falling from about $144.9 billion on October 29 to about $128.3 billion on November 2)