Binance loses an estimated $6.3 billion in suspected record crypto hack

Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, said an attack has impacted an estimated $6.3 billion in digital assets, which would make it the largest crypto theft on record. ¹² The previous record was a $1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange in 2025. ¹²

What was affected. Binance says about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain so far, with blockchain partners helping. ¹ The attackers still hold a large share of the rest. ² Tether and Circle, which issue stablecoins (tokens pegged to the dollar, which the issuer can freeze), say they froze funds tied to the attack, though the outlets give different totals for the freezes. ¹² Withdrawals are suspended while Binance does what it calls a security revamp; deposits are described as normal. ¹ Binance.US, the separate American platform, says it is not affected. ²

How it happened, so far. Binance’s early investigation points to a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. ¹ That, the company says, let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. ¹ Co-CEO Richard Teng added that it was not a single one-click action and that no wallet private key leak has been found. ² Blockchain investigators say the money moved out across 10 blockchains, mostly within about 20 minutes, after preparations that began at least 36 hours earlier. ³

Who, according to others. Binance has not attributed the attack to anyone; Teng said the investigation has not assigned responsibility to any individual. ² Outside firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis both attribute it, with “high confidence,” to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit. ¹² That is their assessment, not a finding by Binance or law enforcement. Binance says only that it is working with law enforcement to identify the criminals. ²

The money. Binance has promised to cover all losses from its SAFU emergency fund and company resources. ¹ One analyst estimates that fund at roughly $1.2 billion and sees no meaningful solvency risk, provided frozen stablecoins are eventually returned. ³ That caveat matters: a freeze stops funds from moving, but getting them back needs a separate legal process that can take months or years. ³ Bitcoin and ether have no issuer who can freeze them, so those would have to be traced and intercepted at cooperating exchanges. ³

Seen it before: a person with legitimate access gets compromised, and the vault turns out to have been fine while the front door was not.

What you should do. Binance says user funds are safe, but that is the company’s statement, and withdrawals are still disabled, so there is little to do but wait. Users who want to be careful can check their account security settings and enable two-factor authentication if it is off. That costs nothing.

Our read: The scale is the headline, but the open questions are the story: how much of the unfrozen money can be traced, how fast withdrawals resume, and whether the post-mortem Binance has promised explains how one laptop became a path to billions. ² Prompt disclosure is a good sign. Judging how complete it is has to wait for that report.

Footnotes

1. Engadget, “Binance hacked for an estimated $6.3 billion in record crypto theft”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. BBC News, “Crypto giant Binance hit by hack suspected to be largest in history”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. CNBC, “Binance’s $6.3 billion hack: What we know and what comes next”. Retrieved October 30, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴