The company – the world's largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes – posted a series of sometimes contradictory messages on X, insisting that "user funds are completely safe" but also saying it would "cover all losses".

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The company later said on its X account for Latin America that "the total estimated impact is around $6.3bn (€5.5bn)".

"We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze the affected assets, with around $3bn (€2.6bn) frozen on-chain so far," it added.

That would be more than four times the amount involved in what had been the biggest-ever cyberattack of its kind to date: $1.5bn (€1.3bn) taken in February last year from the Bybit platform – an attack attributed to hackers affiliated with North Korea.

At about 0030 GMT (0230 CEST) on Friday, Binance said all deposits and withdrawals had been "temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds and works with law enforcement".

"This figure may continue to increase as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets," the company said.

The company's statement on X said an initial investigation suggested the hack involved a compromised laptop belonging to a "DevOps engineer", allowing the unauthorised party to access a "service container" and execute unauthorised withdrawal transactions.

"We have found no evidence of any private key leaks from wallets," Binance said.

"We will share a detailed technical post-mortem analysis once the investigation is complete and the facts are fully verified."

"It does look like a hack on Binance," said former Binance chief Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the group but remains a majority shareholder.

Paolo Ardoino, the boss of Tether – a company that issues a cryptocurrency known as USDT – said his firm had frozen about $1.6bn (€1.4bn) "related to a potential Binance exchange hack".

Jeremy Allaire, who runs cryptocurrency platform Circle, said his company had frozen more than $800m (€696m) in USDC.

USDT and USDC are both "stablecoins", or digital currencies whose value is linked to a traditional currency, the US dollar.

The US Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Crypto prices tumble

For several hours before Binance confirmed the attack, industry observers said hackers had managed to reach the platform.

The prices of most major cryptocurrencies fell following news of the cyberattack, with the exception of stablecoins, which by definition fluctuate only within tight margins.

At about 0400 GMT (0600 CEST), bitcoin and Ethereum were down 0.8%, recovering after plunging by nearly 5% and nearly 6%, respectively. BNB, Binance's native cryptocurrency, was up 2.7% after tumbling nearly 10%.

The attack on Binance comes as many observers express concerns that the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) models could compromise cryptography and IT security protocols.