What happens to your crypto if an exchange is hacked?

What happens to your crypto if an exchange is hacked depends on what was taken and how the exchange responds. On a centralized exchange, your balance is a claim on coins the company holds for you, not coins in your own wallet. If attackers drain the company's wallets, the loss falls first on the exchange, and the question is whether it can and will make customers whole.

Where do exchanges keep customer crypto?

Euronews describes the usual setup. An exchange keeps customers' coins in wallets it controls and processes withdrawals from a few that stay online all the time. Those online wallets are called hot wallets, and the rest sit in offline cold storage. In Binance's 2019 hack, attackers withdrew 7,000 bitcoin from its hot wallet but could not reach cold storage, Decrypt reported. The difference is covered in hot wallet vs cold wallet.

Do exchanges pause withdrawals after a hack?

Usually, at least for a time. On October 29, 2026, after reporting a theft of about $6.3 billion, Binance suspended all deposits and withdrawals as a precaution and said it would cover all losses, according to Euronews' timeline. FinanceFeeds reported the next day that withdrawals were expected back within 48 hours, and on November 1 Binance began reopening them in phases, starting with bitcoin, CoinDesk reported. Responses differ, though. Bybit kept withdrawals open during its $1.5 billion breach in February 2025, FinanceFeeds noted. While a pause lasts, balances may still show in the account but cannot be moved, much like the delays in why is my crypto withdrawal pending.

Can stolen crypto be frozen or recovered?

Some of it. Euronews reported that Binance said early on that about $2.54 billion had been frozen, a figure it said could rise as it worked with law enforcement, and FinanceFeeds later put the frozen amount at about $3 billion. Freezes happen when stolen coins reach a platform or token issuer able to block them, as explained in can crypto be frozen. After the Bybit theft, the FBI published attacker addresses and asked exchanges and other services to block transactions tied to them.

Will you get your money back after an exchange hack?

That is up to the exchange's resources and decisions. In 2019 Binance covered its loss from its emergency fund, described in what the Binance SAFU fund is. If an exchange cannot cover a loss, customers may end up as creditors in a bankruptcy instead, a longer process.

Details of recent incidents are as reported at the time and may change.