Key facts
- Ripple froze $200 million in RLUSD holdings due to a Binance hack.
- The Binance hack resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion in losses.
- Tether and Circle also froze significant amounts of their stablecoins.
- Binance attributed the breach to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop.
- RLUSD's freeze capability is a deliberate institutional design choice.
- Binance expects withdrawal services to resume within 48 hours.
Ripple confirmed on October 29, 2026, that it is freezing approximately $200 million in RLUSD stablecoin holdings due to a massive exploit at Binance, which saw an estimated $6.3 billion drained from hot wallets. This incident marks the largest crypto theft on record. Ripple's action, alongside freezes by Tether and Circle, aims to prevent the movement of stolen funds. Binance stated that user funds are secure and will be covered by the exchange's reserves and SAFU fund, with withdrawal services expected to resume within 48 hours.