Binance is sitting on about 268,000 XBT. No sign the hackers got it
After Thursday's hack, we checked whether Binance's XBT was hit too. It wasn't, as far as the chain shows. But the check turned up something bigger: two of Binance's best-known bitcoin addresses hold about 268,700 XBT, roughly $68 million, or 1.3% of all XBT in existence.
Why Binance has XBT at all
XBT split from Bitcoin in August. Every bitcoin that existed before the split also exists as XBT, controlled by the same keys. Binance doesn't list XBT, but it held huge amounts of bitcoin before the split, so it holds the matching XBT too, unless it moved it.
What the chain shows
| Address | BTC | XBT | What we see |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34xp4vRoCGJym3xR7yCVPFHoCNxv4Twseo labeled Binance cold wallet | 248,598 | 248,598 | Identical. 451 spends on both chains. Nothing has moved on XBT alone. |
| bc1qm34lsc65zpw79lxes69zkqmk6ee3ewf0j77s3h labeled Binance hot wallet | 1,770 | 20,069 | Its recent XBT moves match its bitcoin withdrawals, about one an hour through 20:54 UTC Oct 29. |
Checked at about 02:30 UTC Oct 30 on mempool.space (Bitcoin) and mempool.guide (XBT). Both are labeled Binance by public trackers, and the cold wallet has been reported in the press as Binance's for years. Binance has many more addresses than these two.
So did the hackers get XBT?
No sign of it. The reported theft was on Ethereum: ETH, USDT, USDC and other tokens. No bitcoin loss has been confirmed. The XBT on these two addresses is where it was, and nothing moved to an address that looks like the attacker's. Our story on the hack.
Why the hot wallet's XBT moves
When Binance sends bitcoin to a customer from that hot wallet, the same signed transaction can be valid on the XBT chain too. Anyone can rebroadcast it there, and the matching XBT moves to the same customer address. That's why the hot wallet's XBT moves in step with its bitcoin withdrawals. We explained how these copies work in most old XBT moving is a bitcoin copy.
Why it matters
- Size. 268,700 XBT is about 14 times the roughly 19,400 XBT locked for this weekend's unlock. If Binance ever split and sold it, that would matter far more than the unlock. We have no sign it plans to, and we don't know whether it tracks this XBT at all.
- Security. Any key that controls Binance's bitcoin also controls this XBT. This hack hit Ethereum hot wallets. A future one on the bitcoin side would reach XBT too, unless Binance splits its coins first.
- We'll watch it. Our pre-fork coins tracker flags large moves of pre-split coins. A move from the cold wallet on the XBT side would show up there.
Pre-fork coins trackerCheck any address for XBT
Balances from mempool.space and mempool.guide public APIs, about 02:30 UTC Oct 30, 2026. Dollar value at about $253 per XBT. Address labels from public trackers and press reports, not confirmed by Binance for this story. Not financial advice.
Have an XBT story? Write for xbt.live.