Yi He clarifies: the AAVE staked portion was not included in the freeze statistics
Binance co-founder Yi He responded on X on October 31 that the portion staked on AAVE was not included in the freeze statistics.
This response was aimed at Binance’s previously disclosed statistics of about $3 billion in frozen assets. Earlier the same day, Yi He had said that the $60 million USDT staked by the hacker on Aave was not within the fully frozen scope, and that the hacker actually only borrowed about $46 million worth of ETH. After that portion was unlocked through the law enforcement system, the recoverable assets could increase by another about $14 million. On-chain data showed that before Tether froze the assets, the hacker deposited about $60 million USDT into Aave V3 as collateral and borrowed about 19,762 WETH.
Binance said that the total impact of this hacking incident was about $6.3 billion, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts to date. It has frozen about $3 billion in assets with partners, mainly freezeable stablecoins, and reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover user losses. Aave temporarily froze the relevant markets as a precaution after the incident, then lifted the freeze, and said that its own contracts were not affected and that all positions remained overcollateralized.
Original sources:
Title: Thank you for your attention, the staked AAVE portion is not included in the freeze statistics. Publisher: Yi He (@heyibinance) Date of publication: 2026-10-31 URL: https://x.com/heyibinance/status/2116380173918785609 Source type: original post by the party involved Verification status: the full post was read for this extraction, verification date 2026-10-31 Supporting content: Yi He clearly stated that the AAVE staked portion was not included in the freeze statistics.
Title: Binance arranges $6.34 billion to cover losses from biggest crypto hack ever Publisher: CoinDesk Date of publication: 2026-10-30 URL: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/30/binance-arranges-usd6-34-billion-to-cover-losses-from-record-crypto-hack Source type: media report Verification status: the relevant paragraphs of the report were read for this extraction, verification date 2026-10-31 Supporting content: Binance said the total impact was about $6.3 billion, about $3 billion had been frozen, and more than $6.34 billion in company funds had been reserved.
Title: Binance Hot Wallet Exploit: Aave's Response Publisher: Aave Governance Forum (LlamaRisk) Date of publication: 2026-10-30 URL: https://governance.aave.com/t/binance-hot-wallet-exploit-aaves-response/25954 Source type: official document/governance update Verification status: key factual paragraphs of the forum post were read for this extraction, verification date 2026-10-31 Supporting content: The hacker deposited $60 million USDT into Aave V3 at about 20:58-21:01 UTC and borrowed about 19,762 WETH; Aave then froze the market as a precaution. This does not prove the freeze-statistics methodology or the final recoverable amount.
ABAB AI Insight
Yi He made multiple public statements in the Binance incident about the scope of freezing and coverage. She previously said that the hacker deposited about $60 million USDT into Aave as collateral and borrowed about $46 million worth of ETH, and that this position was not within the fully frozen scope; after it was unlocked through law enforcement channels, about another $14 million might be recovered. This short post further makes clear that the AAVE staked (collateralized) portion was not included in the previously disclosed freeze statistics of about $3 billion, avoiding conflating collateral positions inside a DeFi protocol with balances in addresses directly frozen by the issuer.
In terms of fund flow, before action by Tether and other issuers, the hacker moved the freezeable USDT into an Aave contract and exchanged it for ETH that could not be frozen. Aave then imposed a precautionary freeze on multi-chain markets, suspending new deposits and borrows, while withdrawals and repayments remained open, and confirmed that its own contracts were not affected and that the positions remained overcollateralized. Binance, meanwhile, pointed its coverage path to company reserved funds and already frozen stablecoins, rather than relying on immediate liquidation of that Aave position.
A comparable historical case is the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025, in which the attacker likewise tried to quickly convert freezeable assets through DeFi protocols. The difference this time is the larger scale, and that Binance and Yi He proactively distinguished between the statistical scope of “issuer-frozen addresses” and “collateral positions inside DeFi protocols,” while also giving a figure for possible additional recovery. The similarity is that stablecoin issuers’ freezing power became a key recovery tool, while DeFi lending provided the attacker with a brief window to convert assets.
This clarification changes the precise understanding of the externally cited figure of “about $3 billion frozen”: that statistic did not include the collateral portion on Aave. For Binance, this makes the coverage calculation more dependent on company funds and directly freezeable assets; for Aave, it confirms that it suffered no direct loss and that the positions were safe. Observable indicators are whether law enforcement or the protocol later releases that collateral position, and whether Binance updates the breakdown of frozen and recoverable assets.
ABAB News · Cognitive law
Freeze statistics do not mean that all related assets have been locked.
When freezeable assets are transferred into DeFi, the statistical scope changes.
An overcollateralized position does not mean it has been fully frozen or is no longer recoverable.