{"id":818781,"date":"2026-10-30T15:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T15:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818781\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T15:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T15:24:09","slug":"binance-says-6-3bn-stolen-in-biggest-crypto-heist-in-history-what-we-know-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818781\/","title":{"rendered":"Binance says $6.3bn stolen in biggest crypto heist in history: What we know | Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Binance, the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency exchange, says hackers have stolen about $6.3bn in what appears to have been the biggest crypto heist on record<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company, which was co-founded by the Chinese-born Canadian billionaire Changpeng Zhao, suspended deposits and withdrawals on Thursday and said it would cover all losses, telling Al Jazeera in a statement that user funds were \u201csafe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Two United States blockchain analysis firms have claimed the attack originated in North Korea.<\/p>\n

So how did it happen, and what does it mean for the crypto market? Here\u2019s what you need to know:<\/p>\n

What happened?<\/p>\n

Blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis say most of the theft unfolded over about 20 minutes, starting late on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn attacker moved approximately 6.36 billion USD out of Binance wallets on 10 blockchains,\u201d TRM reported.<\/p>\n

That dwarfs the previous record of $1.5bn, which was stolen from the exchange Bybit in February 2025.<\/p>\n

Binance said about $3bn of that has since been frozen, including more than $2.3bn by stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, according to the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Binance has not stated what has happened to the remaining $3.3bn.<\/p>\n

It also warned on X that the $6.3bn figure \u201cmay continue to increase\u201d as the company works to trace and freeze more assets.<\/p>\n

\"AA price chart on the Bybit website for the cryptocurrency Ethereum is seen on a computer screen in New York on Friday evening, February 21, 2025 [Patrick Sison\/AP]Who carried out the heist and how?<\/p>\n

North Korean hackers, according to the firms tracking the funds.<\/p>\n

TRM said it had assessed with \u201chigh confidence\u201d that the attack was carried out by TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit linked to the Lazarus Group.<\/p>\n

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Lazarus Group \u201ctargets and compromises entities primarily in South Korea and South Korean interests for espionage, disruption, and destruction\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also conducts cyberoperations for financial gain, including targeting cryptocurrency exchanges, the CFR says.<\/p>\n

The US Department of the Treasury sanctioned the Lazarus Group in 2019, saying it was controlled by North Korea\u2019s primary intelligence bureau. North Korea routinely denies involvement in hacking.<\/p>\n

Chainalysis reached the same conclusion, however.<\/p>\n

The FBI also blamed the Bybit hack in 2025 on the same unit.<\/p>\n

TRM said the attackers ordered Binance\u2019s wallets to empty into wallets they controlled, mirroring the Bybit hack.<\/p>\n

Binance has been more cautious, however. \u201cOur investigation has not attributed responsibility to any individual,\u201d co-CEO Richard Teng said on X.<\/p>\n

The company initially said the breach may have started with a hacked laptop belonging to one of its engineers. But on Friday, it said further investigation had uncovered \u201cadditional points of breach\u201d.<\/p>\n

Binance said it had found no evidence that any wallet\u2019s private key, the digital password that controls a crypto wallet, had been leaked.<\/p>\n

But Mark Karpeles, former head of the collapsed Tokyo exchange Mt Gox, told Reuters the attackers had probably accessed keys for at least two Binance wallets.<\/p>\n

What was the purpose of the attack?<\/p>\n

Money.<\/p>\n

While North Korea denies involvement in crypto theft, it has become a much-needed source of foreign currency for Pyongyang, helping to prop up its economy and fund its nuclear programme, which is under United Nations sanctions, experts say.<\/p>\n

In December 2022, South Korea\u2019s spy agency estimated that North Korean hackers had stolen about 1.5 trillion won ($1.1bn) in crypto and other virtual assets over five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen North Korea steals at this scale, the money funds weapons proliferation and other destabilising activity,\u201d Ari Redbord, TRM\u2019s global head of policy, told Al Jazeera, adding, \u201cThat makes this a global security issue, not just a crypto theft.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does this mean for the crypto market?<\/p>\n

Prices have fallen, though markets steadied after the initial shock.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin hit a six-week low of $76,368, while Ether fell more than 3 percent to a two-month low of $2,178.<\/p>\n

Shares in crypto exchange Coinbase, which said it was unaffected, fell 4.8 percent.<\/p>\n

The hack comes as crypto had already been under pressure from higher US interest rates and weaker demand from exchange-traded fund buyers, analysts told Reuters.<\/p>\n

The stolen sum is more than six times Binance\u2019s $1bn emergency fund, the Secure Asset Fund for Users, set up in 2018 and held entirely in Bitcoin to protect users in case of a breach.<\/p>\n

Teng said company funds would also cover losses.<\/p>\n

Is crypto an inherently unsafe investment?<\/p>\n

The hack has exposed one particular weak point: Large, centralised exchanges, which hold users\u2019 assets on their behalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny assets held at a centralised exchange are only as safe as the exchange itself, and the larger the exchange\u2019s holdings, the larger a target it becomes,\u201d Sean Foley, an expert in crypto markets at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Insurance offers limited protection as most crime- and cyber-insurance policies do not cover stolen cryptocurrency, and crypto-specific cover remains a niche business offered largely by specialist insurers.<\/p>\n

Thefts are frequent. Hackers stole $2.87bn in crypto in nearly 150 attacks in 2025, according to TRM\u2019s 2026 Crypto Crime Report.<\/p>\n

Binance itself has faced legal trouble. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to a felony linked to failing to prevent money laundering on the platform. US President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Binance said it was coordinating with law enforcement and remained on track to resume withdrawals within 45 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Binance, the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency exchange, says hackers have stolen about $6.3bn in what appears to have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1296,84,2411,924,42746,1294,936,242,59,50,15414,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-818781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-crime","tag-crypto","tag-economy","tag-explainer","tag-features","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-north-korea","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}