Binance's reserves hit 100% on 10 coins. Its USDT cushion is gone.

Binance's new proof of reserves says what the headlines say: every customer's bitcoin, ether, USDT and seven other coins is backed at least 1:1. Read it next to the October 1 proof and two things changed. The margin above 1:1 is gone, and the proof covers 10 coins where it used to cover 55.

On October 1, Binance held 103.88% of the USDT its customers owned. On October 31, two days after the $6.3 billion hack, it held exactly 100.00%. Bitcoin went from 100.35% to 100.04%. And the SAFU fund, the emergency pool built for exactly this, now holds about 7,500 BTC, half its pre-hack size.

So your balance on Binance is backed today. What backs the next loss is thinner than it was a month ago, and the proof doesn't show it.

What the October 31 proof shows

Binance took the snapshot at 00:00 UTC on Saturday, October 31, and finished the zero-knowledge proof on November 2, a day ahead of its own deadline, according to crypto.news. It lets anyone holding BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD or ZEC check that their balance sits inside the customer total, and that the total is matched by coins in Binance's wallets.

The ratios it reports, per Cryptopolitan:

October 1 figures from Gate's summary of the pre-incident proof and the crypto.news comparison.

Every line clears 100%. That's the claim Binance makes, and the numbers support it.

The cushion that went into the hole

A ratio above 100% means the exchange holds more of a coin than its customers own. The difference is Binance's money, sitting in the same wallets. In a hack, that's the first thing that can be spent.

Our arithmetic on the reported figures:

• USDT. Customers held about 32.03 billion USDT on October 1. At 103.88%, Binance held about $1.24 billion more than it owed. On October 31 the surplus is zero.
• Bitcoin. At 100.35% on roughly 688,600 customer BTC, the surplus was about 2,400 BTC. At 100.04% on 692,187 BTC, it's about 280 BTC. At the price implied by the SAFU's $583 million for 7,500 BTC, that's roughly $187 million down to $22 million.

Ether already sat at exactly 100.00% before the hack, so for ETH holders nothing changed. For USDT, the coin most customers park cash in, the buffer that existed on October 1 doesn't exist now.

Binance hasn't said the surplus paid for the hack. It says it replaced about 95% of the stolen assets from three pockets: the corporate treasury, part of its futures insurance fund and the SAFU. A surplus that sits in Binance's wallets is treasury money by another name. Either way, the result is the same: on USDT, there's nothing left between a customer's balance and the next shortfall except new money Binance would have to add.

The 45 coins outside the proof

The October 1 proof covered 55 assets. The October 31 one covers 10. Binance's explanation, reported by crypto.news, is that those 10 had already been fully replenished, and the rest are less liquid tokens it's still buying on exchanges and over the counter.

That's the missing 5%. Changpeng Zhao put it this way: "Binance has allocated 100% of the funds, it's just 5% remaining to convert to some of the small coins taking time."

If you hold one of the 45, nothing published today shows your coin is backed 1:1. Binance says a new snapshot comes on Wednesday, November 4, with more tokens.

The SAFU fund is under its own floor

Binance converted the SAFU to bitcoin this year and finished on February 12 with 15,000 BTC, bought for $1 billion. The policy is a floor: if the fund's value falls below $800 million because of the bitcoin price, Binance tops it back up to $1 billion.

After the hack, Binance moved 7,499 BTC out of it. The wallet now holds about 7,500 BTC, worth $583 million on Monday. That's $217 million under the floor. The floor rule covers a price drop. As Cointelegraph notes, it sets no timeline for refilling after money is spent on a security incident. Binance has pledged to rebuild the fund to about $1 billion, with no date attached.

Withdrawals came after the snapshot

Binance reopened withdrawals in phases from 06:00 UTC on Sunday, November 1, a day after the snapshot. In the first nine and a half hours customers took out $4.65 billion and put in $1.01 billion, a net outflow of $3.64 billion. CNBC puts that at 2.1% of Binance's $171 billion in assets as of October 28. Zhao called it "98% choose to stay."

Withdrawals don't break a 1:1 ratio on their own. Each dollar that leaves takes a dollar of liability with it. What they do is test whether the reserves are where the proof says, in liquid form, on demand. Binance paid out $4.65 billion in under ten hours, which is the strongest evidence in this story. And The Block reports 24-hour net outflows had fallen to about $3.29 billion by Monday.

What a proof of reserves can't tell you

A proof of reserves checks one side of the ledger against another on one day. It doesn't see loans or legal claims against Binance outside the customer tree, it relies on Binance's own list of wallet addresses, and a missing balance only shows up if customers check their own entries, as NullTX lays out. The last outside firm to review Binance's reserves, Mazars, stopped all crypto work in December 2022.

The October 31 proof is accurate for what it measures: the 10 coins were there at midnight on Saturday. Whether Binance is safe is a wider question.

What to watch

• The November 4 snapshot. Does it bring back the 45 missing assets, and does USDT stay at or above 100% after the $3.64 billion that left?
• Your own leaf. If you hold any of the 10 coins, the proof page lets you check your balance is in the tree. It's the one part of the system that depends on you.
• The SAFU wallet. It's public. A move back above 10,300 BTC at today's price would put it at $800 million again.
• The surplus. A USDT ratio climbing back toward 104% would mean Binance rebuilt the margin it held before October 29.

The case against this read: Binance found about $6 billion in three days without touching customer balances, and that's the opposite of FTX. The case for it: the money came from buffers, and those buffers are now smaller.

Sources

• crypto.news: Binance USDT reserves drop 7.95% as report narrows to 10 assets
• crypto.news: Binance completes reserve proof for 10 tokens after $6.3B hack
• Cryptopolitan: Binance completes proof of reserves after $6.3B hack
• Gate: Binance proof of reserves after the 2026 security incident
• Coin Turk: Binance users withdraw $4.6 billion, USDT reserves fall 8%
• Cointelegraph: Binance taps half its SAFU bitcoin, releases reserve proof
• The Defiant: Binance confirms 7,499 BTC SAFU transfer after hack
• The Block: Binance finalizes $1 billion SAFU conversion into bitcoin
• The Block: Binance completes latest proof of reserves
• CNBC: Binance sees $3.64 billion in net outflows
• NullTX: Why the ZK math doesn't tell the whole story
• CNBC: Mazars suspends all work with crypto clients, December 2022

This is not financial advice.