NEW YORK / CryptoWire.AI / – Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, says hackers stole about $6.3 billion in what appears to be the biggest crypto heist on record. The company suspended withdrawals after the attack, which began late on Thursday, October 29. Binance said user funds were safe and that it would cover all losses. Two U.S. blockchain analysis firms, TRM Labs and Chainalysis, have linked the attack to North Korea. The figure may still rise as tracing continues.
Most of the theft unfolded over about 20 minutes. TRM said an attacker moved approximately $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets across 10 blockchains. That far exceeds the previous record of $1.5 billion, stolen from the exchange Bybit in February 2025. Binance said about $3 billion has since been frozen, including more than $2.3 billion by stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, Reuters reported. Binance has not said what happened to the remaining $3.3 billion.
TRM said it assessed with high confidence that the attack was carried out by TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit linked to the Lazarus Group. Chainalysis reached the same conclusion. The FBI blamed the 2025 Bybit hack on the same unit. North Korean operatives have also targeted U.S. companies in other ways, including fake job applications that Amazon blocked. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Lazarus Group in 2019. North Korea routinely denies involvement in hacking.
Binance finds more points of breach
Binance has been more cautious about attribution. Co-CEO Richard Teng said on X that the investigation had not attributed responsibility to any individual. The company initially said the breach may have started with a hacked laptop belonging to one of its engineers. On Friday, it said further investigation had uncovered additional points of breach. Binance said it found no evidence that any wallet’s private key had leaked. TRM said the attackers ordered Binance wallets to empty into wallets they controlled.
Mark Karpeles, former head of the collapsed Tokyo exchange Mt. Gox, told Reuters the attackers probably accessed keys for at least two Binance wallets. Experts say crypto theft has become a key source of foreign currency for Pyongyang, helping fund a nuclear program that is under United Nations sanctions. Ari Redbord, TRM’s global head of policy, told Al Jazeera that theft on this scale funds weapons proliferation, making it a global security issue.
Bitcoin slides to six-week low
Crypto prices fell after the hack, though markets steadied after the initial shock. Bitcoin hit a six-week low of $76,368, while Ether dropped more than 3% to a two-month low of $2,178. Shares of Coinbase, which said it was unaffected, fell 4.8%. Analysts told Reuters crypto was already under pressure from higher U.S. interest rates and weaker demand from exchange-traded fund buyers. The stolen sum is more than six times Binance’s $1 billion emergency fund.
That fund, the Secure Asset Fund for Users, was set up in 2018 and is held entirely in Bitcoin. Teng said company funds would also cover losses. Binance has faced legal trouble before. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to prevent money laundering and later received a four-month prison term. President Donald Trump pardoned Zhao in 2025. Binance said on Friday it was working with law enforcement and remained on track to resume withdrawals within 45 hours.