● TETHER, CIRCLE FREEZE $1.79 BILLION AFTER BINANCE HACK

Tether and Circle moved fast after suspected hackers drained funds from Binance's hot wallets this week. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino froze $1.567 billion in USDT tied to the incident, while Circle's Jeremy Allaire locked down $800 million in USDC, a combined $1.79 billion clawed back. That still falls short of the up to $5.8 billion in outflows that Coinbase executive Conor Grogan flagged on-chain. Binance says user funds will be covered in full as $BNB dropped more than 10% during the investigation.