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Tether, Circle freeze $2.38 billion after Binance reports security incident

Reuters
Tether, Circle freeze $2.38 billion after Binance reports security incident

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Circle and ‌Tether on Thursday froze over $2.38 billion in stablecoin currency after Binance ​said ‌it was actively investigating a potential security ‌issue.

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said in a post on X its ‌teams were reviewing all relevant information with urgency and added that user funds were safe.

Crypto firm Ripple had frozen roughly $200 million, Binance ⁠co-founder Yi He said on X.

Binance ‌co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who ⁠no longer manages the company, wrote on X ​that the incident "looked like a hack".

Tether, which issues the world's largest stablecoin, ​said it froze nearly $1.57 billion related ​to ‌the hack, with Circle freezing over $800 million.

Circle, another ​stablecoin issuer, is closely tracking reports ⁠of a potential exploit ‌involving Binance, its ​co-founder and CEO Jeremy ​Allaire wrote in a post on X, adding that it will continue supporting the investigation.

Binance has over 335 million registered ‌global users, according to its website. Crypto exchanges such as Binance are platforms where ‌people ​buy, sell or trade digital assets.

Binance.US, a separate cryptocurrency exchange, said it was not affected by the security incident.

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava ‌in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)