- Binance has recovered $73 million in user funds through July.
- Bad actors stole 80% of these funds through hacks, exploits and thefts.
Binance has increased its haul of stolen funds.
The world’s largest crypto exchange has retrieved $73 million from the start of the year through July, according to a Thursday announcement.
This is a 33% increase from 2023, when Binance recovered $55 million.
Binance didn’t elaborate on whether the increase was due to an actual increase in the amount of stolen crypto that it recovered or if it simply stemmed from the crypto market’s broader price gains.
In a press release, the exchange said that bad actors stole 80% of the funds recovered this year through hacks, exploits, and thefts. Said actors stole the remaining 20% through scams.
“Market growth and volatility, as observed in recent months, often bring an influx of new investors who may be more susceptible to scams and hacks,” Jimmy Su, chief security officer at Binace, said in the statement.
Binance’s trumpeting of its retrieval of stolen crypto continues the exchange’s recent attempts to show that it’s a compliant financial institution after it struck a deal in November with the US Department of Justice.
It also comes as the value stolen of assets stolen in crypto hacks and exploits increased 39% between January and July to almost $935 million compared to the same period last year, according to DefiLlama data.
Zhao to Teng
Binance agreed to pay a $4 billion penalty to resolve the DOJ’s investigation into alleged violations of US financial laws.
And Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and former CEO, agreed to plead guilty to failing to implement an effective money laundering program.
In April, a federal judge sentenced Zhao to four months in prison.
The former Binance executive entered prison in June and is expected to be released in the fall.
Richard Teng, Zhao’s successor, has since tried to tout his financial bonafides and increase the crypto exchange’s transparency with regulators.
Ben Weiss is a Dubai Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.