Cryptocurrency giant Binance announced 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 - a sentence that should probably come with a complimentary stress ball.

The company said in a series of online alerts that all deposits and withdrawals are temporarily suspended while its teams conduct security checks, and that the firm will "cover all losses." Nothing says "everything's under control" quite like a press release that includes the phrase "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 - a statement that lands somewhere between "breaking news" and "water is wet." Zhao added that two other crypto platforms, Tether and Circle, have also frozen around $1.7bn in stolen assets.

Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire said the firm is "closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance" and that his company has frozen more than $800m in assets linked to the incident. Circle is the issuer and co-creator of the USDC, one of the world's largest US dollar-backed cryptocurrencies - because nothing pairs better with a suspected hack than a stablecoin trying to keep things stable.

Tether did not immediately respond to queries from the BBC, presumably because it was busy not immediately responding.

Binance said the amount of funds frozen may continue to increase as its teams work closely with law enforcement and other partners to trace and seize additional assets. "We are working around the clock and will share a full post-mortem once the investigation is complete. Please rely only on official Binance channels for updates," it said, adding that users' funds are safe. Because if there's one thing a frozen $2.5bn tells you, it's that everything is fine.

Binance is the world's largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes - a title that, this week, comes with a side of "please don't check your balance right now."