Binance says it found more breach points in $6.3B hack

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says a security breach on Thursday, October 29, affected about $6.3 billion in client assets. If confirmed, it is the largest crypto theft on record, CNBC reported. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said an attacker moved "approximately USD 6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, most of it in about 20 minutes." TRM attributed the attack "with high confidence" to TraderTraitor, which it called North Korea's elite hacking unit, according to AP.cnbc.com+1

The theft is roughly four times the size of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, InvestmentNews noted. Chainalysis also tied the attack to North Korea, Reuters reported. Elliptic called it "almost certainly the single largest known theft of any kind."reuters.com+1

How the attack unfolded

TRM's Ari Redbord said the outflows began at 20:05 GMT on Thursday. He said an "operator wallet" had been funded 36 hours earlier and that transaction signatures were likely prepared in advance, the BBC reported. Binance first said the breach may have started with a "compromised DevOps engineer's laptop" that let an attacker submit unauthorized withdrawals. It said it found "no evidence of any wallet private key leak," according to eGamers. Co-CEO Richard Teng later said investigators had found "additional points of breach." He also said the hackers used a self-destruct mechanism that wiped their tools and traces as they went, the BBC reported.bbc.com+1

Freezes and recovery efforts

Binance said about $3 billion had been frozen on-chain. Tether froze nearly $1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, and Circle ↘ 9.31% froze more than $800 million, Reuters reported. TRM estimated that the hackers still controlled about $2.4 billion in Bitcoin ↗ 0.09% and Ethereum ↗ 0.18%, Yonhap reported. The U.S. Secret Service said it was "working around the clock" with private-sector partners "to identify, freeze, trace, and recover funds," the BBC reported.en.yna.co.kr+2

Customers and markets

Binance said it had set aside about $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the losses. Teng wrote on X: "Your money is safe and we're covering every loss." He added that Binance's own investigation "has not attributed responsibility to any individual," according to Reuters. Withdrawals are still paused. Teng said they will stay off until the system "passes rigorous testing," and he promised a full proof-of-reserves report by Monday, the BBC reported.bbc.com+1

Crypto prices fell on the news before steadying. Bitcoin dropped to a six-week low, and BNB ↗ 0.14% also declined, Reuters reported. Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, said the breach "may further dampen risk appetite and prompt investors to reassess the safety of assets held on centralised exchanges."reuters.com