Binance Has Used Half of Its SAFU Bitcoin Reserve, Worth Approximately $580M

Binance has used roughly half of the Bitcoin held in its emergency user protection fund, leaving the reserve worth about $580 million. The exchange has not provided a specific date for restoring the fund to its previous level.

The wallet Binance identifies as its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) address, 1BAuq7Vho2CEkVkUxbfU26LhwQjbCmWQkD, contained slightly more than 7,500 BTC as of Tuesday. The balance followed four transactions recorded on October 31, according to data from mempool.space.

The wallet held approximately 15,000 BTC in February, after Binance completed the conversion of its roughly $1 billion SAFU reserve from stablecoins into Bitcoin.

With Bitcoin trading near $77,000, the remaining holdings are valued at approximately $580 million.

Binance’s SAFU frequently asked questions page states that the exchange will restore the fund to $1 billion if its value drops below $800 million because of Bitcoin price fluctuations. However, the policy does not specifically address situations in which funds are deployed or spent.

On October 31, Binance announced that it would partially use the SAFU reserve as part of a $6.34 billion recovery effort following a major hack. The exchange said the funding would also involve its corporate treasury and part of its futures insurance fund.

Binance pledged to rebuild the SAFU reserve to approximately $1 billion but did not disclose a schedule for completing the replenishment. It also has not revealed how much money was drawn from the insurance fund.

CoinDesk contacted Binance for further clarification.

The development follows the exchange’s announcement that it had replaced 90% of the cryptocurrency stolen in the massive $6.3 billion security breach.