OKX’s 49th Reserve Report Lands as Binance Bleeds

Crypto exchange OKX has published its 49th consecutive proof-of-reserves report, a cryptographic audit that lets users check whether an exchange holds their assets at least 1:1. The Nov. 1 snapshot shows customer bitcoin balances climbed 9.66% from the Oct. 3 snapshot to 156,609 BTC, an increase of 13,800 BTC.

At bitcoin’s current price of roughly $76,800, those 13,800 coins are worth over $1 billion, and OKX’s full customer stack is worth about $12.04 billion. Ether holdings rose 2.95% to 1.92 million ETH, up 54,879 ETH. USDT moved the other way, falling 9% to 7.96 billion tokens, about 787 million fewer than a month earlier. OKB, the exchange’s own token, slipped 0.08% to 19.68 million.

Users can verify their own balances against the reserves through OKX’s proof-of-reserves page, which the exchange pledged to update monthly after the FTX collapse in late 2022.

That said, the snapshot window does not break out how much bitcoin arrived after the Binance hack.

Moreover, Bitcoin.com News reported yesterday that Binance has shed more than $16.5B in tracked assets since the hack, falling from about $144.9 billion on Oct. 29 to about $128.3 billion on Nov. 2. Part of that drop was the theft itself, and part was falling prices.

Whale Factor data showed that, while Binance lost about $4.5 billion over 24 hours, the next 10 exchanges combined absorbed only about $368 million. In other words, most of the money leaving Binance did not land at rivals but either went to self-custody wallets or stayed off exchanges.

Binance Answers With Its Own Proof

Binance has been racing to rebuild trust with reserve data of its own and CEO Yi He said the exchange has generated the full zero-knowledge proof for its Oct. 31 snapshot. A zero-knowledge proof lets an exchange prove its reserves cover user balances without revealing individual account data.

The proof covers 10 tokens: BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD and ZEC. Users holding any of them can now check that their balance is backed at least 1:1. Days earlier, Binance had already said BTC, ETH, XRP and seven other cryptocurrencies were fully backed after the attack.

Stablecoin issuers have played their own role in the fallout, as Tether said it froze over $1.5B tied to the Binance hack within 30 minutes.

What Comes Next

The next data points are set to arrive fairly quickly given Binance plans to release new reserve snapshots on Nov. 4, and OKX’s 50th report, due in early December, will be the first to cover a full month after the hack. That report should show whether OKX’s bitcoin gains held once the panic faded.

OKX also has other fights on its hands since its tokenized stock venture with Intercontinental Exchange has drawn objections from Nvidia, Costco, Nike, and other listed companies. Consequently, the exchange’s reserve reports aren’t the only scorecards traders will be watching this month.

Binance’s “cost of doing business,” including fines and hack losses, could equal more than half of the largest crypto exchange’s…