Binance says it has covered 90% of losses from $6.3 billion hack so far

Oct 31 (Reuters) - Crypto exchange Binance said on Saturday it has been able to replace 90% of the amount stolen after a record $6.3 billion hack of its platform, by using company money to buy new tokens.

The remaining 10% consists of tokens that are less liquid, which means they may take longer to buy, it said in a statement posted on X.

"We've now replenished 90% of the stolen assets, and we're committed to covering the remaining 10%. Our users will not bear the financial impact of this incident," co-CEO Richard Teng said on X on Saturday.

Crypto prices fell on Friday, while Binance — the world's biggest crypto exchange — sought to reassure customers that their funds were safe after losing more than $6 billion worth of crypto in a hack which analysts blamed on North Korea.

Teng said ​on Friday that the breach was a "complex attack" involving a compromised laptop and malicious software designed to delete evidence of its activity, making it harder to trace and investigate.

After the hack, the exchange stopped allowing customers to withdraw their funds, but it said on Saturday it was still on track to re-open withdrawals on Sunday.

Binance said it has set aside around $6.34 billion of company funds internally to cover the losses. 

The money spent re-buying tokens came from using part of its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a bitcoin reserve it holds to protect customers in the event of security breaches, as well as some of its Futures insurance fund, and the company's own corporate treasury, it said on X.

Binance also said it had taken a new snapshot of assets held on its platform as of 0000 GMT on October 31, as part of its proof-of-reserves process.

Users holding the 10 listed tokens — BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC — would be able to verify that their assets were backed at a minimum 1:1 ratio once the full proof was available, it said.

(Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft, Editing by Joe Bavier and Jan Harvey)