Binance Ethereum Hot Wallets Drained of Over $5.5 Billion via EIP-7702 Delegation Attack
On the evening of 29 October, between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion in assets left Binance hot wallets on the Ethereum network in just 40 minutes. When Bitcoin and Tron movements are included, the total exceeds $5.57 billion according to Decrypt. The attacker did not extract private keys; instead, EIP-7702 was used to replace the execution code of Binance 14 with a malicious contract, enabling a single sweep transaction to empty the wallet.
Tether and Circle froze approximately $971 million USDT and $823 million USDC within the first hour. By 01:09 Moscow time Tether had increased the freeze to roughly $1.67 billion, bringing the combined blocked amount to about $2.5 billion. Binance is investigating the incident and maintains that user funds are safe; no official attribution has been made.
18 Hours of Preparation and 40-Minute Execution
The attacker prepared for nearly a full day and conducted three rehearsal attacks on unrelated wallets. Gas was pre-funded through three deposits of roughly 0.1 ETH each from Tornado Cash on 28 and 29 October. Key timeline events (UTC):
- 02:29 — deployment of the first contract 0x19be…f2bf
- 13:51 — EIP-7702 delegations to two test wallets followed by sweep tests at 14:20 and 14:24
- 15:59 — deployment of the final malicious contract 0x63e8…6fAe later used against Binance
- 16:21–16:30 — third test on another wallet
- 20:21 — EIP-7702 delegation of Binance 14 to the attacker contract
- 20:24 — main sweep of 167 464 ETH and 63 tokens including 1.615 billion USDT
- 20:24 — Binance 16 sent an additional 28 005.6 ETH to the same recipient
- 20:38 — 195 460 ETH moved in a single transaction to 0x8532…43D4
- 20:41 and 20:59 — additional calls from Binance 14 coincided with 780 million and 43 million USDC leaving Hot Wallet 34
Only three and a half hours separated the final test from the live attack, and just 3 minutes 24 seconds passed between delegation and the main withdrawal.
How EIP-7702 Allowed Code Substitution
EIP-7702 permits an externally owned account to adopt smart-contract code after the owner signs an authorization. From that point, any call to the address executes the delegated code. The attacker deployed contract 0x63e8…6fAe containing a sweep function that transfers ETH and listed tokens to a designated address. A type-4 transaction containing the signed authorization for Binance 14 was submitted at 20:20:59. Three minutes later the sweep function was invoked directly on Binance 14, moving all assets for a gas cost of roughly 0.0004 ETH.
Fund Movements and Freezes
The primary recipient 0x5227…2f8c received assets from Binance 14, Binance 16 and Hot Wallet 34 and still holds approximately 971 million USDT (matching the Tether freeze) and 2 077 ETH. The 195 460 ETH sent to 0x8532…43D4 has not moved. Remaining tokens were distributed to fresh wallets pre-funded with 0.5–1 ETH for gas. Tether ultimately froze around 1.67 billion USDT, indicating some already-fragmented funds were also blocked.
Attribution Indicators
Operational patterns closely match previous operations attributed to TraderTraitor, a subgroup of the North Korean Lazarus collective. Similarities include Tornado Cash gas funding, multiple test sweeps, rapid contract deployment, and the use of a sweep function. Earlier incidents at WazirX, Bybit, Bitget and AFX share comparable tactics. Binance had recently reported blocking several North Korea-linked attacks via fake job interviews. Confirmation may come from future movement of the 195 460 ETH via THORChain, mirroring the Bybit laundering pattern.
Self-Verification and Defensive Recommendations
All data is publicly visible on Etherscan or Blockscout. EIP-7702 delegation can be checked via the eth_getCode RPC method; a response beginning with 0xef0100 indicates delegation and reveals the contract address. Recommended controls for hot wallets include blocking 7702 authorizations, monitoring type-4 transactions, and rapid revocation of delegations.
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