Summary
- The emergency safety reserve maintained by Binance for its customers currently contains roughly 7,500 bitcoin, valued at approximately $580 million, following withdrawals on October 31 that cut its bitcoin inventory in half.
- Binance announced plans to utilize a portion of this account together with internal corporate reserves and futures insurance reserves to absorb deficits stemming from a massive $6.3 billion security breach.
- While the trading platform committed to rebuilding the safety pool to around $1 billion, it omitted any schedule for completion, and its current replenishment policy only addresses bitcoin market dips rather than actual expenditures.
Data indicates that Binance has depleted 50% of the bitcoin contained in its designated customer protection safety pool and remains silent on when the assets will be replenished.
Publicly disclosed blockchain data from mempool.space reveals that the wallet address for the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), designated as 1BAuq7Vho2CEkVkUxbfU26LhwQjbCmWQkD, contained slightly above 7,500 BTC as of Tuesday following a series of four transfers executed on October 31.
Back in February, when the cryptocurrency platform completed shifting the approximately $1 billion reserve entirely from stablecoins into bitcoin, the balance stood at 15,000 BTC.
With bitcoin trading near $77,000 per token, the remaining reserve balance equates to roughly $580 million.
Documentation on the SAFU FAQ page states that the platform readjusts the fund back up to $1 billion if total valuation drops beneath $800 million specifically because of “BTC price fluctuations.” However, the guideline fails to account for instances where capital from the reserve is actively spent.
As noted on October 31, Binance stated it would draw upon the SAFU pool as a component of the total $6.34 billion allocated to handle damages from the exploit, combining it with corporate treasury funds and a segment of its derivatives insurance pool, while promising to bring the reserve back to roughly $1 billion.
No specific timeframe was provided for topping off the balance, and management withheld details regarding how much of the insurance account was drawn down.
CoinDesk has contacted Binance to request a statement.
Read more: Binance says it has replaced 90% of stolen crypto after massive $6.3 billion breach
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/11/03/binance-has-spent-half-its-safu-bitcoin-about-usd580-million-worth-data-shows.
