Gate reports 88.26% of assets in cold storage after $6.36B Binance attack
In brief
- Gate reported 88.26% of total assets in cold storage and 11.74% in hot wallets.
- Gate claims cold storage covers 104.58% of customer assets even if hot wallets are drained.
- PoSEC data remains under independent review by a third-party audit firm.
- TRM Labs said attackers took about $6.36 billion from Binance, mostly within 20 minutes.
What Gate disclosed
The split is only half of Gate's pitch. The exchange claims its cold storage could cover 104.58% of customer assets even if its hot wallets were completely drained. Put simply, Gate's 11.74% hot-wallet share is the slice that coverage claim assumes is lost in full, and the exchange says the remaining cold reserves would still exceed what customers hold.
“By publicly disclosing the distribution of assets between platform cold storage and hot wallets, PoSEC provides visibility into asset storage structures and their ability to cover potential losses under extreme scenarios,” Gate said.
It's a direct answer to the question users have been asking all week: if the hot wallet goes, what's left?
The Binance attack behind it
According to TRM Labs, threat actors attacked Binance's hot-wallet infrastructure last week and stole approximately $6.36 billion. Most of it went in about 20 minutes. Several exchanges then disclosed how they split assets between cold storage and hot wallets to reassure users, and Gate's PoSEC framework is one of those disclosures.
Binance hasn't published that kind of breakdown. CEO Richard Teng said the "vast majority" of user assets are held in cold wallets, but the company hasn't provided a precise split (so there's no Binance percentage to set against Gate's 88.26%).
What isn't verified yet
Gate noted the PoSEC data is still undergoing independent review by a third-party audit firm. Until that review wraps up, the 88.26% figure and the 104.58% coverage claim are Gate's own numbers rather than audited ones, and that's how they should be read when comparing exchanges after a hot-wallet loss this size.
It's a self-reported number, for now.
Frequently asked questions
What is Gate's Proof of Security (PoSEC) framework?
PoSEC is a framework Gate launched on Thursday to disclose how its assets are split between cold storage and hot wallets. Gate reported 88.26% of total assets in cold storage and 11.74% in hot wallets, and said the data is still under independent review by a third-party audit firm.
Why are exchanges disclosing their cold and hot wallet splits now?
Several exchanges disclosed the split after last week's attack on Binance's hot-wallet infrastructure. According to TRM Labs, attackers stole approximately $6.36 billion, most of it in about 20 minutes. Binance CEO Richard Teng said the vast majority of user assets are in cold wallets but gave no precise split.
