Binance's Human Firewall Prevented $6.69 Billion in Scam Losses in 2025, Protecting 5.4 Million Users

$6.69 Billion Stopped Before It Left the Building

Binance disclosed in a February 2026 post that its risk measures and proactive controls prevented $6.69 billion in potential fraud and scam losses throughout 2025, protecting over 5.4 million users from bad actors. The figure represents a staggering increase from the $129 million the exchange reported preventing in 2024, signaling a dramatic scaling of both the threats facing crypto users and the infrastructure Binance has built to counter them.

The announcement highlighted what Binance calls the "human firewall," the coordinated team of risk analysts, customer support agents, and investigators who work alongside automated systems to intercept scams in real time. It is not just algorithms catching bad transactions. Real people are picking up the phone, entering chat sessions, and walking potential victims through the warning signs before funds leave their accounts.

Why the Jump from $129 Million to $6.69 Billion Matters

The 50x increase year-over-year is not simply a function of more users. It reflects a fundamental shift in how sophisticated crypto scams have become and how exchanges have had to respond. Pig butchering schemes, approval phishing, fake investment platforms, and impersonation scams have all scaled dramatically, driven by AI-generated content and social engineering that is harder to distinguish from legitimate communication.

Binance's response was to move from a reactive model (catching fraud after the fact) to a proactive one (stopping it before it happens). The $6.69 billion figure represents funds that were flagged and frozen before they could be withdrawn to scam-controlled addresses. That distinction matters: recovery after funds leave an exchange is notoriously difficult, with success rates often below 5%. Prevention is the only reliable defense.

For context, the total crypto lost to hacks and scams in 2025 across the entire industry was significantly lower than what Binance alone prevented. This suggests the exchange's internal detection systems are catching threats at a scale that dwarfs what makes it into public exploit trackers.

The 9 Levels: From Pop-Ups to Phone Calls

Binance operates a 9-level anti-scam risk control framework that escalates intervention based on the severity of the detected threat. The levels range from automated nudges to direct human contact:

Level 1: Custom Pop-Up Notifications. The mildest intervention. When Binance detects behavior consistent with a scam pattern, users see a targeted warning explaining the specific risk.

Level 2: Interactive Risk Assessment Forms. Users flagged as potentially vulnerable receive a questionnaire designed to help them recognize whether they are being manipulated. The responses feed back into the risk engine.

Level 3: Global Malicious Address Database. Binance maintains a shared database built in cooperation with Web3 security firms. Withdrawals to known scam addresses trigger automatic blocks.

Level 4: Fund Flow Freezing. When the system identifies a likely victim mid-transaction, Binance freezes the anomalous fund flow and initiates outreach.

Level 5: One-Hour Cooling Period. Suspicious withdrawals are delayed by one hour, giving users time to reconsider and giving the risk team time to investigate.

Level 6: 24-Hour Cooling Period. For higher-risk cases, the delay extends to a full day. Users in this tier have a statistically high probability of being actively scammed.

Level 7: Chat Dissuasion. A human customer service agent enters a direct conversation with the user, walking them through the scam mechanics and providing evidence that they are being targeted.

Level 8: Wake-Up Call. For the most urgent cases involving large sums, Binance's team makes a direct voice call to the user. This is the "human firewall" in its most literal form: a real person on the phone, trying to prevent a life-changing loss.

Level 9: Alert Services. The newest addition to the framework extends protection beyond the platform, coordinating with external partners and law enforcement for cases that require cross-platform intervention.

The escalation from automated systems to direct human contact is what makes this approach unusual. Most exchanges rely entirely on automated flagging and cooling periods. Binance is one of the few that has invested in a team capable of making phone calls and entering live chat sessions with users who may be in the process of being scammed.

What This Means for Binance Users

If you hold funds on Binance for trading, staking, or spending through their card, the practical implications are significant. The 9-level system applies to all withdrawal attempts, meaning your funds benefit from this protection whether you are aware of it or not.

The cooling periods can be frustrating if you are making a legitimate withdrawal and hit a false positive. But the trade-off is clear: a one-hour delay is a minor inconvenience compared to losing your entire balance to a sophisticated social engineering attack. The 5.4 million users who were protected in 2025 likely include many who did not realize they were being targeted.

For users evaluating where to custody their crypto, these numbers provide a concrete data point. Exchange security is not just about cold storage and multisig wallets. It is also about whether the platform has the operational infrastructure to detect and stop social engineering in real time. Hardware wallets protect against hacks, but they do nothing against a user who is convinced to voluntarily send funds to a scammer. That is the gap Binance's human firewall is designed to fill.

The Broader Exchange Security Arms Race

Binance's approach is setting a benchmark that other exchanges will face pressure to match. Competitors like OKX have invested heavily in malicious domain blocking, and KuCoin has pushed passwordless authentication to reduce account takeover risk. But the human-in-the-loop model, where trained agents actively intervene in suspected scam transactions, remains relatively rare at scale.

The law enforcement coordination side is equally notable. In 2025, Binance responded to over 64,800 law enforcement requests and assisted more than 14,800 registered officials across multiple jurisdictions. The exchange also recovered $88 million in assets tied to hacks, exploits, and thefts on external platforms, and participated in cross-border disruption campaigns through the World Economic Forum's Cybercrime Atlas initiative.

For the broader crypto ecosystem, the key takeaway is that security is increasingly a differentiator, not a checkbox. Users who keep funds on exchanges for card spending, staking, or trading are implicitly trusting those platforms to protect them from threats they may not even recognize. The exchanges that invest most aggressively in that protection will likely capture the most trust, and the most deposits.

FAQ

How does Binance's human firewall work? Binance employs a 9-level anti-scam system that escalates from automated pop-up warnings to direct phone calls. When the risk engine detects a user is likely being scammed, human agents can enter live chat or make voice calls to walk them through the warning signs before funds leave the platform.

How much did Binance prevent in scam losses in 2025? Binance prevented $6.69 billion in potential fraud and scam losses in 2025, protecting over 5.4 million users. This was a massive increase from the $129 million prevented in 2024.

Will the cooling period affect my normal withdrawals? Most legitimate withdrawals are unaffected. The cooling periods (1-hour and 24-hour) only trigger when Binance's risk engine flags a withdrawal as potentially linked to a scam. If you hit a false positive, the delay is temporary and the risk team will review the transaction.

Does this protection apply to Binance Card users? Yes. The anti-scam measures apply to all withdrawal and transaction activity on Binance, including funds held for card spending, staking, and trading.

Overview

Binance's 2025 anti-scam numbers reveal the scale of the threat facing crypto users: $6.69 billion in potential losses stopped, 5.4 million users shielded, and a 9-level framework that goes far beyond automated alerts. The "human firewall," real people making phone calls and entering chat sessions with potential victims, is the most distinctive element. As social engineering becomes the dominant attack vector in crypto, this model of combining AI detection with human intervention is likely to become the industry standard. For users evaluating exchange security, the question is no longer just "how safe is the cold storage?" but "what happens when I am the vulnerability?"