Wire reporting: (Reuters, via Dawn)

Binance said on Thursday a security breach had an estimated $6.3 billion impact and that it and partners had located or frozen about $3 billion in affected assets, according to Reuters copy carried by Dawn, France 24 and RTE News^1,2,3.

The exchange's initial account, as relayed by Dawn and France 24, pointed to a compromised engineer's laptop and unauthorized withdrawals^1,2. Co-founder Yi He said the firm would cover hacking losses, and Binance said user funds remained safe while deposits and withdrawals were paused^1,2,3.

RTE reported that Tether said it had frozen nearly $1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident and that Circle froze more than $800 million³. Dawn and France 24 said bitcoin and ether each fell more than 3 percent in early Friday Asian trading^1,2; RTE's copy put those drops at about 2 percent³.

RTE led on the freeze total; Dawn and France 24 led on the $6.3 billion impact and whether the incident would rank as the largest crypto theft on record^1,2,3. How much of the remaining estimated impact can be recovered, and the cause of the breach, were not confirmed in the copy reviewed^1,2,3. A separate Reuters analyst roundup could not be read in full⁴.