North Korean hackers blamed for record $6.3bn Binance theft

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has suffered an industry-record cyberattack amounting to $6.3 billion.

According to The Guardian, experts say the likely perpetrator is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Binance moved urgently to freeze the affected assets, and approximately $3 billion has been identified so far.

The company has not provided any update regarding the remaining $3.3 billion.

Binance co-founder Yi He said the company would cover “all cyberattack losses.”

Analysts attributed the assault to state-sponsored hackers from the DPRK. According to The Guardian, the DPRK has a history of cryptocurrency theft and, according to the FBI, was behind the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets from a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange last year.

That incident had set the record as the largest cryptocurrency theft recorded up to that point.

Crypto analytics firm TRM attributed the attack “with high confidence” to TraderTraitor, North Korea’s elite hacking unit.

Another analytics entity, Chainalysis, also linked the heist to TraderTraitor.

Binance has not explicitly confirmed that funds were stolen. However, TRM and Chainalysis claimed that more than $6 billion had been taken. The company stated that its teams were “working around the clock” to resolve the issue.

According to Binance’s statement, initial investigation findings revealed that the security breach may have begun with a hacked laptop belonging to one of Binance’s engineers, enabling an attacker to gain access to one of the company’s systems and execute unauthorised withdrawals.

Binance, which allows users to buy, sell, and trade digital assets, has 335 million registered users worldwide, and the total value of assets under its custody was approximately $162.8 billion, according to the exchange’s 2025 annual report.

“The bottom line is that your funds are safe and we are covering all losses,” said Richard Teng, one of Binance’s co-chief executives.

In a statement, the company said:

“As a precautionary measure, all deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended while our security teams, with close support from law enforcement and industry partners, conduct checks, secure wallet infrastructure, and track affected assets.”

Markets reacted immediately early in the Asian trading session on Friday, with bitcoin, by far the most popular crypto asset, dropping by more than 3% to a six-week low of $76,368.

Shares of crypto exchange Coinbase Global lost 4.8%, while shares of bitcoin buyer Strategy fell by about 6% in extended trading on US markets.

Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao. Zhao pleaded guilty in the US in 2023 over failures to prevent money laundering on the platform. Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.

In a post shared on X on Thursday, Zhao said, “User funds are safe!” but added that the incident “looks like a hack on Binance.”

Stating that he no longer manages Binance, Zhao said, “As a shareholder, I expect all user funds to be fully covered.”

According to Chainalysis and other industry experts, if confirmed, this could become the world’s largest cryptocurrency theft.

“This is the biggest hack in history,” said Aravind Srinivasan, head of the systematic OTC business at major crypto market maker GSR.

Analysts noted that beyond the potential loss of assets, the security breach could have broader repercussions across the cryptocurrency market.

Indeed, the cryptocurrency market had already been under pressure recently due to interest rate increases in the US and weakening demand from exchange-traded fund buyers.

Binance operates a secure asset fund for users; as stated on the company’s website, this fund is an emergency reserve held entirely in bitcoin, intended to protect user assets in the event of security breaches.

Stablecoin issuer Tether announced that it had frozen approximately $1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, while Circle froze more than $800 million.

World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm linked to Trump and his family, said in a statement on Thursday that it was collaborating with cryptocurrency custody provider BitGo to freeze funds stolen in what it described as the Binance attack.

Yi from Binance said $27 million in stablecoins and roughly $2 million worth of World Liberty tokens had been frozen.

This development adds to a successive series of cryptocurrency thefts. According to researchers at TRM Labs, attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency across roughly 150 attacks last year.

In September, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget announced that about $350 million worth of cryptocurrency had been stolen from its platform, highlighting the industry’s vulnerability to hackers.