The world’s largest crypto exchange Binance has suffered its biggest hack to date: $6.3 billion stolen
Agency. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has said it has managed to freeze about half of its digital assets after a ‘complex’ cyberattack that stole $6.3 billion worth of digital assets.
Binance said $3 billion of the stolen money in what is believed to be the largest heist in history has been secured, although the rest is still in the hands of unknown hackers.
Initially, Binance assumed that the funds had been withdrawn illegally by accessing the laptop of one of its engineers, but later during the investigation, it was revealed that the attack was more widespread and larger.
Various analysts have claimed that a North Korean hacking group was involved in this attack, which even surpassed the record of the $1.5 billion theft on the Bybit exchange in 2025. Following the incident, the US Secret Service said it was “working around the clock” to identify, block, track and recover the stolen funds. The US’s main financial crime investigation agency has said it will identify and prosecute the cybercriminals responsible, while Binance has also said it is cooperating with the FBI. Although Binance said its US-based service (Binance.US) was not affected, the investigation and recovery will involve US jurisdictions as well as international bodies, as the stolen funds included US assets such as Tether and Circle, which are pegged to the dollar. Binance has assured its users, saying, ‘Your funds are completely safe and the company will compensate for all losses.’
Although the company initially suspended all deposits and withdrawals, it later updated the information, stating that ‘deposit services are not affected.’ Binance Co-Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng said, “This is not the work of a single individual. While our initial investigation indicated that the security flaw originated on an engineer’s laptop, subsequent investigation has uncovered multiple other vulnerabilities.” Teng said that the hackers used ‘self-destruct’ technology to destroy the tools and evidence they used, which complicated investigation and tracking. The company later issued an updated statement, stating that more than $6.34 billion had been ‘released’ from the company’s treasury to cover the stolen assets and that it was ‘actively purchasing’ various crypto tokens.
The massive hack on Binance caused a major stir in the cryptocurrency market on Friday. Bitcoin prices fell 5 percent to $76,800 in New York trading on Friday afternoon. Similarly, the share price of another crypto exchange, Coinbase, fell by 12 percent, while shares of Robinhood, a financial services company that trades crypto, fell by 7.8 percent. Binance, which launched in China in 2017, is a leading digital asset trading platform with over 300 million registered users worldwide. By 2024, the company had over $160 billion in assets under management. There is currently a great deal of fear among Binance users and the crypto industry as a whole about whether Binance can truly recover from such a huge financial loss.
The company has repeatedly reiterated that customer funds are safe and that it is capable of dealing with this crisis. However, crypto market analysts recall that FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried made exactly the same assurance in 2022 before the exchange collapsed, causing huge losses for customers. Some experts have warned that even if Binance promises compensation, it cannot be considered legally binding and may have to resort to litigation to recover the money. “It will depend on what is said in the contracts with customers and where Binance can be sued,” said Daniel Tankell of the London-based law firm Edwin Co. Binance has been under close scrutiny by regulators around the world. Meanwhile, AI-based research organization TRM Labs has reported that many of the styles of this attack are similar to previous incidents linked to North Korea (such as the Bybit hack).
The crypto industry has suffered billions in losses due to hackers over the past five years. In almost all cases, researchers have blamed North Korean hackers, specifically the ‘Lazarus Group’ or ‘TraderTraitor’, a group of cybercriminals working directly for the North Korean regime. Crypto analytics firm Chainalysis also said it had “high confidence” that North Korea was involved in the hack. Experts say North Korea, a poor country with heavy international sanctions and little industry, has used cybercrime as a way to run its economy and raise funds.
Although North Korea has consistently denied these allegations, analysis of cryptocurrency flows and interviews with defectors provide strong evidence that North Korea is the only country using hacking to raise public funds.
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