Tether freezes $971M USDT tied to suspected Binance hack
Security & Exploits ·
Tether blacklisted nearly $971M in USDT linked to a suspected security breach at Binance, while Binance has issued no public statement on the incident.
Tether's freeze, reported at 971 million USDT, targets funds suspected of originating from a hack affecting Binance. The action blocks the frozen tokens from being moved or redeemed, a standard step Tether can take when addresses are flagged in connection with illicit activity. As of the freeze, Binance had not issued an official statement confirming or denying a breach.
Alongside the USDT freeze, roughly $820M in USDC tied to the same hacker wallet remained unfrozen, leaving a substantial portion of the suspected proceeds still accessible. The gap between the frozen USDT and the untouched USDC highlights the difference in how stablecoin issuers respond to flagged addresses, with one asset locked and the other still liquid.
Separately, attention has turned to EIP-7702, an Ethereum account-delegation feature, as a potential vector for the wallet drainage associated with this incident. The feature allows externally owned accounts to temporarily adopt smart-contract-like behavior, and its flagged role suggests investigators are examining whether delegation permissions were exploited to move funds out of compromised wallets.
The episode has been corroborated across multiple reports, with five distinct sources describing the roughly $971M USDT freeze and the suspected link to Binance. Figures across these accounts are consistent, with some additionally noting the unfrozen USDC balance and the EIP-7702 angle.
What remains unresolved is whether Binance will confirm a breach, how the funds were initially compromised, and whether the unfrozen USDC will eventually be subject to action by Circle. The scale of any user impact, and whether Tether or other parties will move to freeze additional addresses tied to the same wallet cluster, are also unknown at this stage.