Hackers steal $6.3 billion from Binance

Las Vegas. Hackers stole more than $6 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Thursday.

The company announced Friday that the attack appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. Binance said it reserved over $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the loss. It also began recovering assets for its users.

Blockchain partners helped Binance freeze roughly $3 billion in affected assets. The exchange promised to cover all losses. It has posted regular updates on social media as it investigates the incident.

Richard Teng, Binance’s co-CEO, said the company is working nonstop to resolve the situation. He posted a video on X on Friday to address the public.

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that U.S. officials are investigating the hack. When asked if North Korea was involved, he said, “We’re looking at that.”

U.S.-based blockchain intelligence firm TRM attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit. The firm said it made this judgment with high confidence. It noted that an attacker moved approximately $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains in about 20 minutes.

Chainalysis co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin also wrote on X that the hack was likely carried out by TraderTraitor. A Binance spokesperson said the company is working closely with law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of the criminals.

Experts say North Korea has turned to crypto hacking to earn foreign currency for its economy and nuclear program. South Korea’s spy agency estimated in December 2022 that North Korean hackers stole $1.1 billion in crypto and other assets over five years. It described North Korea’s digital theft capacity as among the world’s best.

Garrick Hileman, an independent cryptocurrency analyst, noted that hackers are already converting some of the unrecovered funds. He compared the process to money laundering, where stolen goods are mixed with other cryptos to make them harder to track. TRM and other experts identified this as the biggest crypto theft by dollar value.

In February 2025, the exchange Bybit lost $1.5 billion to a hack that the FBI linked to North Korea. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao noted on X that while this hack is larger in dollar terms, previous attacks like Mt. Gox affected more bitcoin.

Kok Tin Gan, CEO of cybersecurity firm NyxLab, said the breach may have involved a single signature that gave an attacker full access to a Binance hot wallet. These wallets hold users' private keys and are connected to the internet.

Teng confirmed that Binance’s hot wallet was affected. He explained that most user assets sit in offline cold wallets and only move to hot wallets during withdrawals. He said the attackers used complex tactics, including a self-destruct mechanism, which has made the investigation more difficult. The team is not working with a single individual but a group of attackers using sophisticated methods.