Crypto Exchanges Tout Cold Storage After Binance Hack

Crypto exchanges have been fast to reassure customers following the assault on Binance’s scorching pockets infrastructure final week, with a number of firms disclosing how they divide property between chilly storage and internet-connected scorching wallets this week. 

Crypto alternate Gate on Thursday launched a “Proof of Safety” (PoSEC) framework, reporting that 88.26% of its whole property have been in chilly storage and 11.74% in scorching wallets. It claims its chilly storage may cowl 104.58% of buyer property even when its scorching wallets have been fully drained.

“By publicly disclosing the distribution of property between platform chilly storage and scorching wallets, PoSEC offers visibility into asset storage buildings and their capacity to cowl potential losses underneath excessive eventualities,” Gate stated. It famous the info continues to be present process unbiased overview by a third-party audit agency.

Menace actors attacked Binance’s hot-wallet infrastructure final week, stealing roughly $6.36 billion, most of it in about 20 minutes, in keeping with TRM Labs. Binance CEO Richard Teng stated the “overwhelming majority” of consumer property are held in chilly wallets, however the firm has not supplied a exact cut up. 

Different crypto exchanges have been fast to share their chilly storage ratios this week. 

Coinbase says 99% of buyer property held in chilly wallets

In a weblog post Wednesday, Coinbase stated that greater than 99% of buyer property are held in offline chilly storage and that it constantly rebalances extra property to chilly storage. 

“Binance’s reported scorching pockets incident has understandably left clients asking how Coinbase protects buyer property from one thing related occurring right here,” it stated.  

On Tuesday, Upbit, the most important cryptocurrency alternate in South Korea, confirmed it holds 99.17% of its property in chilly wallets, with the remaining 0.83% in scorching wallets as of September 2026. These figures are already disclosed to the Monetary Supervisory Service. 

“This represents the very best chilly pockets storage ratio amongst South Korea’s 5 main KRW-based cryptocurrency exchanges and is considerably above the regulatory minimal of 80%,” a spokesperson for Upbit father or mother firm Dunamu informed Cointelegraph, in response to questions on South Korea’s name for crypto exchanges to increase their cold storage ratios.

“Our purpose is to maintain our scorching pockets holdings at an absolute minimal, with a goal of sustaining them under 1% of buyer digital property,” they added.

Associated: Fed, OCC check US banks after Binance hack as experts flag security risks

Different main South Korean exchanges have reported decrease cold-wallet shares. Monetary Supervisory Service figures cited in earlier reporting put Bithumb at 94.76%, Coinone at 85%, Digital X, previously Korbit, at 82.79%, and GOPAX at 80.54% on the finish of September.

OKX’s existing safety overview, final up to date on Sept. 18, 2026, stated it holds greater than 95% of shopper crypto property in chilly wallets and fewer than 5% in scorching wallets.

The reported ratios will not be essentially instantly comparable as a result of exchanges use totally different reporting intervals and should calculate cold-storage shares in opposition to totally different asset bases. 

Cold storage ratios, nevertheless, supply solely a part of the image of an alternate’s safety.

Offline wallets can nonetheless be uncovered by means of compromised signing methods, insufficient entry controls or workers approving fraudulent transactions.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Fee warned in an August 2025 round that such weaknesses may compromise each hot- and cold-wallet infrastructure.

Journal: Asian crypto exchanges batten down the hatches as hacks surge: Asia Express