Newton Foundation: The Binance attacker is suspected of mistakenly transferring tokens worth 3.5 million USD into the NEWT contract address, and the assets have been permanently locked

The Newton Foundation stated that the attacker in the Binance theft incident seemingly made an operational error earlier today, transferring approximately 8 million NEWT and 17 other tokens directly into the NEWT token contract address, with the total value of the related tokens amounting to about 3.5 million USD at current prices. This includes tokens such as ANIME, ANKR, ARPA, BARD, FTT, LQTY, SIGN, and WOO.

The foundation emphasized that the NEWT token contract itself was not attacked. Upon inspection, the contract is immutable, has no owner or administrator, and all management rights were relinquished on-chain in 2025, with upgrade functions permanently disabled. Therefore, no one, including the foundation, can retrieve the tokens that were directly transferred into the contract.

The foundation stated that these tokens are now permanently locked, out of the attacker’s control, and cannot be sold on the market anymore. The relevant investigation results have been communicated to Binance, and the foundation will continue to provide assistance.