Crypto just had its biggest heist ever. Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says hackers drained about $6.3 billion from its platform. Blockchain analysts Elliptic told Reuters it is "almost certainly the single-largest-known theft of any kind."
What happened
According to Reuters, the bulk of the theft unfolded in around 20 minutes starting late Thursday, Oct. 29. Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said on X that attackers manipulated the system used to approve transactions. That let them move money out of an internet-connected "hot" wallet without going through normal approval controls.
Teng called it a "complex attack" that wasn't carried out by one person. He said it involved a compromised laptop and malicious software built to delete evidence as it went, "making it more difficult for us to trace and investigate." CNBC reports Binance said it found "no evidence of any wallet private key leak."
Reuters broke down the record heist in this video:
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/2116115394834612444
The freeze
Stablecoin issuers moved fast. Tether said it froze nearly $1.57 billion linked to the incident, and Circle froze more than $800 million, according to Reuters. That's over $2.38 billion combined. Binance co-founder Yi He said on X that Ripple froze roughly $200 million.
Binance says about $3 billion has been located and frozen so far. Reuters notes the exchange hasn't addressed the status of the remaining $3.3 billion.
Who did it?
Nobody has been charged. US blockchain firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis told Reuters the attack resembles past heists blamed on North Korea, including the 2025 Bybit hack. Finance Magnates reports TRM attributed it "with high confidence" to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. North Korea has denied involvement in such thefts.
President Trump said he didn't know whether North Korea was behind it but that his administration is looking into it. The FBI said it is "aware of the incident," and the Secret Service said it is working "around the clock" with partners including Circle to trace and recover the funds.
Are customers covered?
Binance says yes. Reuters reports the exchange has set aside about $6.34 billion of company funds to cover losses and says customer funds are safe. Withdrawals are paused, and Binance is targeting a restart within roughly 34 hours, with a proof-of-reserves report due by Monday. Binance.US said it was not affected, per Reuters.
Market hit
Bitcoin dropped to a six-week low of $76,368 before stabilizing, and Binance's BNB token fell about 6.4% in a day, according to Reuters.
Here's how it played out hour by hour. TRM Labs says the first unauthorized withdrawals hit at 1:05 PM PT on Thursday. According to Coinbase's BTC-USD price data, Bitcoin opened that hour at about $80,743. It bottomed out at $76,141 around 11 AM PT Friday and was trading near $77,178 by 4 PM PT Friday.
Zoom out and the hack landed on a market that was already sliding. Coinbase's daily data shows Bitcoin closed as high as about $86,507 in early October. That's well above where it's trading now.
Bitwise's Matt Hougan told Reuters that hot wallet hacks "have historically not had a meaningful impact on future crypto returns."
