Binance loses about $6.3 billion in what appears to be the largest crypto theft on record

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, confirmed on Thursday that attackers stole about $6.3 billion in digital assets. Early reports had put the figure as high as $5.8 billion. TRM Labs counted roughly $6.36 billion leaving Binance wallets on October 29, most of it within about 20 minutes. Binance's initial investigation says the breach may have started with a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, which let the attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. The company says it has found no evidence that any wallet private key leaked. Co-CEO Richard Teng said the attack was not a single "one-click" action and that no individual has been blamed. Binance also said it had found additional points of breach. Chainalysis and TRM Labs both said with high confidence that North Korean hackers were responsible, and SecurityWeek reports the attack bears the hallmarks of the TraderTraitor group. The previous record was the $1.5 billion stolen from Bybit in February 2025. Tether and Circle froze more than $2.3 billion in related assets, and Binance says close to $3 billion has now been frozen on-chain. The exchange says it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company money. Deposits are working normally again. Withdrawals remain paused while the withdrawal service is overhauled and are expected to resume within 48 hours. Binance has promised a technical post-mortem.