FBI says it is aware of the Binance hack and is working with partners to gauge its scope

The agency's wording points to an inquiry still taking shape, while the exchange has already given users a date for withdrawals and promised to make them whole.

The FBI has confirmed it is aware of the Binance hack and has engaged with relevant partners to understand the scope of the activity and weigh its impact. That is the language of an inquiry that has barely begun, and it sits awkwardly beside the exchange's own timetable.

Binance has halted all deposits and withdrawals, a suspension far wider than the Binance Alpha service where it started. Co-founder Yi He has said withdrawals will resume within 48 hours, the first end point the exchange has offered, and Binance says it will make users whole. The FBI and the Secret Service are both involved. A federal investigation has no reason to keep to a schedule set by the company it is examining.

The sums explain why that matters. On-chain data showed $2.77 bln leaving Binance wallets across five blockchains, and the exchange's own headline figure for the heist is $6.3bn. Tether froze $971 mln in USDT after the outflows; together with Circle it froze about $1.8 bln. Binance now says $2.54 bln is frozen and that more may follow as it works with law enforcement.

That total was reached before the FBI spoke, and it is the figure most exposed to what investigators find. The method of the breach, or further frozen amounts, could turn up facts that do not fit the 48-hour promise. If they do, users waiting on their money and any holder of BNB will be reading federal findings, not the exchange's calendar. A pledge to compensate is only as good as the final tally, and that tally is still moving.