THE BIGGEST CRYPTO HEIST EVER: Binance Says $6.3 Billion Hit in Hack

Binance says about $6.3 billion in assets was impacted in a security incident — dwarfing the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of 2025. About $3 billion has been frozen, withdrawals are suspended, and Binance says it will cover all losses.

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, says about $6.3 billion in assets was impacted in a security incident late Thursday, in what would be the largest cryptocurrency theft on record — dwarfing the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of 2025.

Attackers drained Binance's hot wallets across multiple blockchains, with most of the coins — including bitcoin, ether and stablecoins USDT and USDC — leaving in a burst that lasted only about 20 minutes, according to blockchain analysts tracking the theft.

Binance says it has worked with industry partners to freeze about $3 billion in stolen assets so far, and that withdrawals remain suspended while it finishes security checks. Deposits remain open, and the exchange has said withdrawals could resume roughly 45 to 48 hours after the incident.

To reassure users, Binance says it has set aside more than $6.34 billion in company resources to restore customer balances, with $5 billion already held in the exact token assets that were affected. Co-CEO Yi He has said the platform will cover all hacking losses.

Binance's preliminary investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop as a possible way in, allowing an attacker to reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. The exchange says it has found no evidence of a wallet private key leak.

Blockchain analysis firms including Chainalysis and TRM Labs have linked the attack with high confidence to North Korea's TraderTraitor hacking unit, the group the FBI blamed for the Bybit theft. Binance itself has not named an attacker, and that attribution remains the investigators' assessment.

The scale of the theft — and the speed with which it was carried out — is already spurring calls for stronger withdrawal safeguards and coordinated industry responses, as exchanges, stablecoin issuers and law enforcement work to track and recover the frozen funds.

Reporting: CoinDesk