Cryptocurrency giant Binance said on Thursday that it has frozen digital assets worth more than $2.5bn (£1.87bn) to prevent them from being stolen while it investigates a security issue.

The company said as part of a series of alerts online that all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while its teams conduct security checks and that the firm will “cover all losses”.

“It does look like a hack on Binance,” said Binance’s former boss Changpeng Zhao, who remains a majority shareholder of the firm.