Analysts tie record $6.3B Binance hack to North Korea

Hackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, starting late Thursday, October 29. Blockchain analysts have attributed the theft to North Korea and say it may be the largest financial heist of any kind. TRM Labs counted about $6.36 billion pulled from Binance wallets on 10 blockchains. Most of it moved in roughly 20 minutes beginning at 4:05 p.m. ET.reuters.com+1

The exchange has paused withdrawals and says about $3 billion has been frozen. It has promised to cover every loss. It has not said who is responsible. "Our investigation has not attributed responsibility to any individual," co-CEO Richard Teng said.reuters.com

Analysts point to TraderTraitor

TRM said it linked the attack to TraderTraitor, "North Korea's elite hacking unit," and that "we make this judgment with high confidence". Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin also named TraderTraitor. His firm found money from Binance mixing with proceeds from last month's Bitget exploit. Elliptic called the incident "almost certainly the single largest known theft of any kind". The same group was blamed for the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit theft in 2025, which had been the previous record. Pyongyang has denied hacking accusations in the past.cnn.com+2

Binance said its first findings pointed to a compromised engineer's laptop. That device let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange said it found no sign that private keys had leaked. It later said it had found additional points of breach. TRM's analysis suggests the attacker got control of Binance's hot-wallet signing system across several chains.techcrunch.com+1

Freezes and the funds still out

Tether said it froze nearly $1.57 billion, and Circle ↘ 9.31% froze more than $800 million. Ripple and World Liberty Financial also froze funds. According to TRM, the attacker still holds more than 420,000 ETH and 18,270 BTC, worth about $2.4 billion, which no issuer can freeze. Binance said it has set aside more than $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the losses.finance.yahoo.com+1

The FBI said it is working with public and private partners. The Secret Service said its investigators are "working around the clock" to trace and recover the funds. Binance expects withdrawals to resume by Sunday morning.cnn.com

Market fallout

Bitcoin ↗ 0.14% dropped to a six-week low and ether Ethereum ↗ 0.43% fell to a two-month low before prices steadied. BNB ↗ 0.00%, the token used to pay Binance fees, also declined. Cristiano Ventricelli of Moody's ↗ 1.04% said the wider impact will depend on "whether the incident leads to wider disruption or loss of confidence across the digital-asset ecosystem".reuters.com