Bitcoin Holds Above $77,000 as Binance Restarts Withdrawals Following Record Hack

Bitcoin Holds Above $77,000 as Binance Restarts Withdrawals Following Record Hack

Bitcoin steadied on Monday, trading at $77,926 at 11:02 UTC according to CoinGecko, roughly 2% above the low it carved out in the aftermath of the Binance hack, by Unchained’s calculation. Ether traded alongside it at $2,285.83, leaving the two largest cryptocurrencies looking considerably calmer than they appeared at the end of last week.

The weekend trough that the market is now climbing away from landed on Friday afternoon, Oct. 30, when the BTC-USD pair on Coinbase slipped to $76,141 at 18:50 UTC, based on exchange data. The bounce back into the high-$77,000s suggests buyers were willing to step in even with the breach still dominating headlines.

Binance Reopens the Withdrawal Gates

The firmer price action coincided with Binance allowing customers to move funds again. The exchange began reopening withdrawals in stages at 06:00 UTC on Sunday, Nov. 1, lifting the freeze that had followed the security incident.

The first nine and a half hours painted a picture of a cautious but orderly exit rather than a panic:

• Between 06:00 and 15:30 UTC, users withdrew $4.649 billion and deposited $1.01 billion.
• That worked out to a net outflow of about $3.64 billion.
• Binance characterized the figure as 2.1% of the $171 billion in customer assets reported in its Oct. 28 proof-of-reserves snapshot.

Just as important as the size of the outflow was its direction of travel. After the initial surge, withdrawals “have declined and are stabilising as expected,” the exchange said, adding, “Rest assured that market conditions are stable.” The messaging was clearly aimed at reassuring users that the platform could absorb the activity without strain.

ETF Outflows Failed to Break the Floor

What makes the recovery stand out is the pressure it pushed back against. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $643.3 million in net outflows on Friday, according to SoSoValue, yet the price floor held firm through the weekend.

Two issuers accounted for the bulk of the redemptions:

• BlackRock’s IBIT: $233.7 million in outflows
• Fidelity’s FBTC: $201.0 million in outflows

Friday carried additional weight because it marked the first U.S. trading session since the hack, which began after Thursday’s market close, based on the timeline Chainalysis published. American investors were effectively reacting to the breach in real time, and even that wave of selling could not drag bitcoin back down toward its Friday low. For a market digesting a historic exchange compromise, holding the line under heavy ETF redemptions reads as a sign of underlying demand.

A $6.3 Billion Breach Linked to North Korea

Sitting beneath the price moves is one of the largest thefts the industry has ever logged. Blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis both estimate the losses from the Binance hack at more than $6.3 billion, and both attribute the attack to TraderTraitor, a hacking group tied to North Korea.

Binance has worked to keep the damage contained to its own books rather than passing it to account holders. The exchange pledged to cover the losses using its SAFU fund alongside company money. That guarantee goes a long way toward explaining why the weekend’s deposit and withdrawal flows normalized instead of cascading into a wider run on the platform.

Iran and the Midterms Hang Over the Week

Crypto is not trading the hack in a vacuum. A geopolitical question is layered on top of everything as the week opens, with Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections approaching: what Washington decides to do about Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged President Donald Trump to strike Iran immediately after the vote, Axios reported. Trump, by contrast, appears willing to give diplomacy more room. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, he described talks with Tehran as “going fine” and said he was not “in much of a hurry.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed that patient stance, confirming that no decision has been made, according to Iran International. For traders, the setup is clear enough: a market still processing a record-breaking exchange hack now has an unresolved foreign-policy risk running beside it as the new trading week gets underway.