Binance says Brazilian customer assets are held in cold wallets as crypto withdrawals are paused for up to 45 hours

Binance says customer assets in Brazil are kept in cold wallets and separated from the exchange’s own funds in line with Banco Central do Brasil rules. The catch: withdrawals are temporarily suspended while the platform runs a systems review, which is exactly the kind of operational hiccup high-risk PSPs and exchanges watch closely.

1. In a statement, Binance said Brazilian customer assets are stored in cold wallets (offline wallets whose private keys are kept disconnected from the internet), which reduces the risk of hacking but does not eliminate losses entirely.
2. The company also said it follows Banco Central do Brasil requirements that customer funds and digital assets be kept separate from the exchange’s own resources. In practice, that means users’ crypto should be held apart from Binance’s operational wallets.
3. Crypto withdrawals are temporarily suspended. Binance said the measure is preventive and is being used to review platform systems, while deposits were not affected and other services continue to operate normally.
4. Binance said it is still on track to restore the withdrawal service within up to 45 hours. It also said it will cover losses caused by the attack using its emergency fund, its own resources, and funds that have already been blocked.
5. André Matos, CEO of MA7 Capital, said the immediate risk for Binance customers is temporary loss of access to funds rather than permanent loss. He also noted that Binance’s ability to absorb all losses has not been independently verified, and that the promise covers stolen assets, not price declines. That matters because crypto investors can still lose money if the assets fall in value, even if they were not directly hit by the attack.

For payment providers and exchanges serving Brazil, the relevant detail is not just the cold-wallet setup, but the operational response: a withdrawal freeze, a stated 45-hour restoration window, and a public commitment to cover losses. Also worth noting: cryptocurrencies do not have coverage from Brazil’s Fundo Garantidor de Créditos (FGC).