Key Takeaways
- Lookonchain tracked 128.63M ENA, worth about $24M, moving from Ethena-labeled wallets to Binance on Oct. 31.
- Binance says it already holds $5B of the $6.3B in stolen assets and is buying the remaining 20%.
- Reserve Protocol expects Binance to finish repurchasing 3.38B RSR before its Nov. 2 reserves report.
Ethena Tokens Flow Into Binance
Blockchain trackers flagged the transfers early on Oct. 31, writing:
Binance is buying back the stolen assets through market channels and OTC deals,
At press time, Ethena has deposited 128.63 million ENA into the exchange over eight hours. Moreover, Arkham Intelligence data has shown the tokens leaving an address labeled “Ethena: Coinbase Prime Custody” in batches of roughly 25.25 million ENA (all of which eventually landed in a Binance deposit address).
The size lines up with what was taken, as onchain analyst EmberCN pointed out that 217.5 million ENA was stolen from Binance on Oct. 29. That means the Ethena transfers cover roughly 59% of the missing tokens.
The hacker had already dumped that ENA and sold 217.5 million ENA for about $33.93 million as part of seven token sales that produced 70,480 ETH. Bitcoin.com News covered that news as part of the $158 million dump that took place yesterday.
ENA is currently trading near $0.19.
Binance Pledges to Make Every User Whole
The buybacks follow a promise Binance made in its Oct. 30 update, signed by co-CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng. The exchange said it would cover all stolen funds through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), an emergency reserve, and its corporate treasury.
Binance said it had set aside more than $6.34 billion, with $5 billion held in the exact tokens that were stolen, such as USDC, USDT, BTC, ETH, and BNB. That covers about 80% of the loss. The update stated:
We are actively buying the remaining relevant token assets through market and OTC channels.
Yi He has spent the weekend reassuring users, going as far as replying to supporters in Chinese, where she promised Binance would “never let down those who trust Binance.” When some users offered to donate money to help, she told them Binance could cover the losses and that donations should go to charity and people in need instead.
RSR Is Next in Line
Ethena is not the only project waiting on Binance as the Reserve Protocol team too revealed that Binance had confirmed it would be repurchasing the missing 3.38 billion RSR stolen in the attack. They further added that its treasury has no appetite to sell, adding:
In the case of RSR we believe Binance will acquire on the open market through a professional market maker.
With RSR near $0.00137 per token, the missing tokens are worth about $4.6 million. RSR was up about 6.4% over the past 24 hours, though it is unclear how much of that move is tied to buying.
Reserve said it infers the repurchase will be finished by Monday, because that is when Binance has promised a full proof of reserves report showing that balances are fully backed.
Looking At What Comes Over The Next 48 Hours
Binance said it would run an initial proof-of-reserves snapshot within 12 hours of its update, with results ready by Nov. 2. Withdrawals are targeted to resume in phases within about 34 hours, subject to security checks, as Bitcoin.com News reported in its recovery plan coverage.
The Monday report will show whether Binance closed its remaining 20% gap, roughly $1.3 billion, in time, and whether more project treasuries such as Ethena’s are quietly part of the fix.
