Binance Founders Trade Public Posts After $6.4B Hack; Sources Differ on Funding Picture
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao publicly cited SpaceX shares he values above $1 billion while urging Elon Musk to stop trolling during the exchange's hack response. Co-CEO Yi He said annual revenue could cover the losses, and Binance separately reported more than $6 billion in reserved company funds.
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What the Founders Said
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao asked Elon Musk on Oct. 30 to stop trolling during the exchange's response to a theft that Decrypt reported at $6.4 billion across multiple blockchains. In posts on X, Zhao cited what he called "our SPCX shares," which he said came from a $500 million investment in Musk's Twitter takeover and were worth more than $1 billion. Those ownership, valuation and investment claims are Zhao's own account and have not been independently verified.
Co-CEO Yi He, posting as @heyibinance, said the company's revenue for the year was sufficient to cover the losses and that Binance did "not yet need to sell" the SpaceX shares. Zhao later said he had never suggested a sale and was only showing Musk funds that might reassure him.
Two Accounts of the Funding Position
The founders' posts and Binance's later company statement describe different resources, and they should not be read as the same figure. Yi He's comment refers to annual revenue, which is a flow over a year. Zhao's "rough math" weighed the losses against the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and the estimated SpaceX holding, and he described the remaining gap as painful but manageable. An estimated equity value is not cash, and an annual revenue figure is not funds available at a given moment.
Binance's statement on Oct. 30 said it had reserved more than $6 billion of company funds. It said $5 billion of that was already held in the affected token assets, and that it was buying the remainder through market and over-the-counter channels. The exchange cautioned that this could take longer because some tokens are thinly traded and over-the-counter settlement takes time. Binance reported $3 billion in frozen or protected assets separately, saying those remained subject to ongoing recovery and verification. Frozen assets are not the same as recovered funds.
The Theft and Its Recovery Limits
Decrypt reported that at least $6.4 billion was taken from wallets associated with the exchange on Oct. 29 across Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron. An earlier estimate it cited put the outflow at $5.57 billion, and the sources do not reconcile those two totals. Tether and Circle froze about $1.8 billion in the initial response and a total of $2.39 billion afterward. Ether cannot be frozen by a central issuer, and the attackers moved funds through Uniswap and Aave into ETH, which complicates recovery.
TRM Labs and Chainalysis attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean group previously linked to the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025. Attribution from analytics firms is an informed assessment rather than a legal finding.
Musk's Response and What to Watch
Musk replied to a post estimating Binance's losses at around $1 billion with a grimacing emoji, which prompted a user to resurface a 2022 post by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried claiming FTX had enough funds to cover its losses. FTX collapsed weeks later. Musk did not elaborate on his meaning. Zhao's claimed SpaceX holding is not a liquid asset, and the next public signals are Binance's progress in acquiring the affected tokens and any update on the frozen-asset recovery.
Why It Matters
For Traders
Binance's stated purchases of affected tokens and any frozen-asset recovery updates are the near-term data points to watch, since claimed equity value is not liquid.
For Investors
The gap between reserved company funds, frozen assets and unverified holdings is a reminder that exchange solvency claims need audited disclosure to be weighed properly.
For Builders
Stolen ETH moved through Uniswap and Aave shows that stablecoin freezes do not cover native ether, so protocol teams should plan for unfreezable exits.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.
