Two blockchain investigations published on November 1 reveal new details about cryptocurrency exchange activity and the growing tokenized-equities market. In today’s crypto roundup, Bitquery reports that Binance’s on-chain payouts collapsed 99.8% during the withdrawal shutdown following its $6.3 billion hack, while rival exchanges including Bybit and Bitget attracted unusually large numbers of depositors. Separately, the research firm estimates that Robinhood’s October trading-volume lead over Coinbase in tokenized stocks shrinks by more than 90% after adjusting for arbitrage round trips. Both studies raise questions about what blockchain transaction data can establish about actual customer activity and investor demand.
Binance payouts fell 99.8% during 54-hour shutdown
Binance processed just 2,248 payouts across five monitored blockchains during the 54 hours following its October 29 security breach, compared with 1,189,878 payouts during equivalent hours one week earlier, according to a November 1 investigation by blockchain analytics firm Bitquery.
The 99.8% decline covers Ethereum, BNB Chain, TRON, Solana and Bitcoin. Researchers examined 206 Binance hot wallets identified through Bitquery’s address-labeling system and compared their outgoing transfers with activity during the same weekdays of the previous week.
Bitquery found that customer payouts on Solana, BNB Chain and TRON stopped within six seconds of one another at approximately 20:36 UTC on October 29, about 12 minutes after the attack began. Ethereum withdrawals continued briefly before the final identified customer payout at 20:44:59 UTC.
Quite a stop, even allowing for the wallet labels.
The investigation also estimated that Binance’s monitored hot wallets distributed approximately $3.7 billion in stablecoins during the comparable 54-hour period one week earlier. Those transfers largely disappeared during the shutdown, although the historical figure is a benchmark rather than a confirmed amount of customer withdrawals permanently prevented.
The figures depend on Bitquery’s identification of exchange-controlled addresses and its classification of transfers as payouts. They do not represent a complete audit of Binance’s internal customer balances or activity on every blockchain supported by the exchange.
Binance confirmed that its hot-wallet infrastructure was compromised on October 29, resulting in approximately $6.3 billion in unauthorized transfers. The exchange pledged to cover customer losses using corporate resources and reserve funds.
On October 31, the FBI attributed the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor operation, saying investigators had observed stolen assets being converted primarily into ether and warning cryptocurrency service providers about subsequent laundering activity.
The withdrawal stoppage described by Bitquery preceded the gradual reopening of services on November 1. As DaveFinances previously reported on Binance’s withdrawal restart, the exchange initially restored selected assets and networks while continuing security checks on the remaining withdrawal routes.
Bybit and Bitget attract depositors as Binance reopens
Bitquery found that Bybit recorded 31,539 Ethereum depositors during Binance’s shutdown, compared with 13,038 in equivalent hours the previous week, an increase of approximately 2.4 times.
Stablecoin deposits into Bybit on Ethereum rose from $95.1 million to $239.2 million. The median deposit was roughly one-third of its usual size, suggesting that the increase involved substantially more smaller deposits rather than simply a handful of larger institutional transfers.
On TRON, Bitget recieved deposits from 10,274 addresses, compared with 4,470 in the previous period, a 2.3-fold increase. Its stablecoin inflows rose more moderately, from $66 million to $87 million.
Across eight monitored rival exchanges, TRON-based USDT deposits below $1 million increased 42%. OKX recorded $432.4 million in Ethereum stablecoin deposits, compared with $155.4 million a week earlier, although its depositor count rose by a smaller proportion.
Coinbase displayed a different pattern. Bitquery counted 12,327 Ethereum depositors, up from 10,505, but the increase remained within the range indicated by its earlier comparision periods. Binance’s international platform does not serve the same primary customer market as Coinbase, which is concentrated more heavily in the United States.
More deposits, yes, but not proof of more lasting customers.
The research cannot establish how many depositors were previously active Binance customers. Some transfers may reflect emergency trading arrangements, existing accounts being funded, or a response to market volatility rather than permanent customer migration.
Later withdrawal data provides another measurement of the disruption. By November 2, Binance reported approximately $4.72 billion in net customer outflows following the reopening, equivalent to about 2.8% of assets on its platform. The exchange said withdrawal volumes were stabilizing and reported substantial incoming deposits, including approximately $2.7 billion in inflows.
The coins moved again when access came back, and in size.
These later figures do not contradict Bitquery’s 99.8% decline during the earlier suspension. They measure a seperate phase, when customers began withdrawing funds after access was restored.
The distinction between exchange deposits and transfers of stolen assets also remains important. In a previous investigation of the Binance hacker’s JustLend route and $208 million in TRX, DaveFinances examined suspected attacker-controlled transfers. Those flows should not be combined with ordinary customer deposits into competing exchanges.
Robinhood’s $119 million tokenized-stock lead shrinks
A second November 1 Bitquery study estimated that tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds generated approximately $10.3 billion in decentralized-exchange trading volume during October 2026, across six issuers and five blockchains.
Robinhood-linked stock tokens accounted for approximately $2.61 billion of the total, compared with $2.49 billion for Coinbase-linked products. The unadjusted figures placed Robinhood ahead by roughly $119 million, or 5%.
That lead narrowed to approximately $11 million when Bitquery adjusted transactions in which trading bots bought and sold the same token within a single blockchain transaction, counting each such round trip once rather than recording both swaps separately.
The research found that these round-trip transactions represented about 10% of Robinhood’s token trading volume between October 2 and 31, compared with 2% for Coinbase.
A lead, but a fairly narrow one once the loops are counted differently.
The ranking becomes even more sensitive when the methodology changes. Excluding Bitquery’s estimated October 1 data puts Coinbase approximately $9 million ahead. Under a stricter adjustment retaining only the largest swap for each token within a transaction, Coinbase leads by around $33 million.
The October 1 estimate accounts for approximately 4.5% of total monthly volume, introducing an additional limitation when comparing the two issuers at such narrow margins.
Coinbase also overtook Robinhood during the second half of October, recording approximately $1.39 billion in trading volume between October 16 and 31, versus Robinhood’s $1.26 billion. Coinbase’s lead over that period was approximately 10%.
The findings challenge the usefulness of gross decentralized-exchange turnover as a standalone measure of market share. Arbitrage transactions can provide actual liquidity and help align prices between pools, but counting both sides as seperate-looking purchases and sales can exaggerate the scale of independent investor participation.
Market concentration provides additional context. Bitquery estimated that the 100 busiest wallets generated 64% of Coinbase token volume during October 2–31, compared with 35% for Robinhood. The number of trading wallets was also considerably lower for Coinbase, at 34,332 against Robinhood’s 163,736.
These wallet counts do not translate directly into unique customers, because some applications execute transactions for multiple users through shared addresses.
Similar questions about turnover and underlying economic activity emerged in DaveFinances’ analysis of Backpack’s tokenized Take-Two stock, where Bitquery identified extensive automated trading alongside unusually high turnover relative to the token’s available float.
Off-hours trading dominates tokenized equities
Bitquery’s October research found that 65% of tokenized-stock DEX trading occurred outside regular US equity-market hours between October 2 and 31. Approximately 18% of the measured volume occurred between Friday evening and Sunday evening, New York time.
The results indicate that tokenized equities are attracting substantial trading activity when the underlying US stock market is closed. Yet that activity was not distributed evenly across the week.
Average weekday turnover reached approximately $388 million, compared with $195 million on weekend days. The market never closes, the underlying shares mostly do.
Thin off-hours markets can produce temporary pricing differences across venues, particularly when a token reacts to corporate news without the same depth of conventional equity trading available during the regular session.
Bitquery documented one such episode following Alphabet’s October 28 earnings release. Four tokenized versions of Alphabet shares initially declined, but Coinbase’s token subsequently traded as much as approximately 4% above competing versions during a period of reduced trading activity.
That divergence does not by itself establish manipulation or a permanent pricing failure. It illustrates how trading depth, order concentration and the availability of arbitrage counterparties can affect price alignment when liquidity is limited.
The $10.3 billion monthly estimate also excludes trading conducted inside issuers’ applications and on centralized exchanges. It therefore measures a defined segment of tokenized-equity activity rather than the entire global market for these instruments.
For market participants evaluating tokenized equities, trading volume alone provides an incomplete picture. The same $100 million of reported turnover may represent many independent investors establishing exposure or repeated transactions involving a much smaller amount of capital.
The November 1 findings leave two questions unresolved. For cryptocurrency exchanges, whether the depositor surge observed during Binance’s shutdown translated into persistant market-share changes after withdrawals resumed. For tokenized stocks, whether growing turnover reflects broader investor participation or increasingly active automated trading among a concentrated group of wallets.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
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