SINGAPORE/TOKYO/PARIS Oct 30 (Reuters) – Hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, in a theft that analysts blamed on North Korea and said could be the largest financial heist of all time.
Cryptocurrency prices fell on the news, while Binance halted withdrawals and said it would use company funds to cover the losses. Stablecoin issuers including El Salvador-based Tether and the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial froze about half of the stolen assets. Binance is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service (USSS), a person familiar with the situation. “This was a complex attack, and we are doing all we can in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it,” Binance said in a post on X.The exchange said customer funds were safe and it was working with partners to freeze some of the affected assets, with about $3 billion located so far. It said earlier on Friday it expected to resume withdrawal services in the next 48 hours. It did not mention the status of the remaining $3.3 billion.
Advertisement ·Binance said the company had set aside around $6.34 billion of company funds internally to cover the losses, without giving details about where the funds had come from. The company has a $1 billion bitcoin reserve fund designed to protect customer assets in the event of security breaches, according to its website. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on X that the company owned SpaceX shares worth more than $1 billion.
The bulk of the heist unfolded in around 20 minutes beginning late on Thursday and bore similarities to previous large attacks blamed on North Korea, according to US blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis.
TRM said the attackers were able to order Binance wallets to empty into hacker-controlled wallets, mirroring a 2025 heist at crypto exchange Bybit, which the FBI attributed to North Korea. Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority, which issued Binance’s main operating licence, said it was “engaging closely with Binance and monitoring the incident”.
“Your money is safe and we’re covering every loss,” Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said on X. “Our investigation has not attributed responsibility to any individual.” “It’s the biggest hack in history,” Aravind Srinivasan at market maker GSR said, as crypto prices fell broadly. The incident adds to a string of crypto thefts. Last year, attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency across nearly 150 attacks, according to researchers at TRM Labs. In September, Bitget said roughly $350 million in crypto had been stolen from its platform.
“The broader credit and industry implications will depend on the ultimate losses, affected counterparties, asset recovery, and importantly, whether the incident leads to wider disruption or loss of confidence across the digital-asset ecosystem,” said Cristiano Ventricelli, vice president, digital assets at Moody’s Ratings.
NN: The loses to hacker attacks keep getting bigger and bigger. And it will get worse as quantum computers get better and proliferate. The really bad news is Artificial Intelligence is figuring more and more in these kind of attacks.
Binance uncovers additional breach points after hack
Binance said on Friday that its investigation into a security incident had uncovered additional breach points, expanding on initial findings that suggested a compromised laptop may have been involved. The cryptocurrency exchange described the incident as a “complex attack” and said it was working with law enforcement while continuing to gather facts. Binance added that unauthorized outflows stopped when it suspended withdrawals and that around $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen through coordination with partners. “We are still on track towards the expected timeline to resume the withdrawal service in 45 hours. Deposits remain unaffected,” Binance said, adding that it “will continue to provide further updates through official Binance channels as more verified information becomes available.”