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Binance Hackers Siphon $6.3 Billion in Record Crypto Heist
Confirmed
In Short: Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange with more than 300 million users, said the value of crypto holdings being withdrawn represents just 3% of its $157 billion in total assets.
Binance customers withdrew $7.4 billion from the cryptocurrency exchange after it suffered what security experts said was the largest digital coin theft ever, according to CBS News. The hack, attributed to the group 'TraderTraitor,' resulted in a net outflow of $4.7 billion in the company's holdings.
Roughly $3 billion of the stolen assets were frozen, according to Binance. The hackers were converting most of the stolen assets into Ethereum to hide their tracks, the FBI said.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange with more than 300 million users, said the value of crypto holdings being withdrawn represents just 3% of its $157 billion in total assets. By Sunday, Binance said it had replaced nearly 100% of the cryptocurrencies that customers lost in the attack, by using part of its own crypto holdings or buying them in the markets.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng told FOX Business that customers will not bear any losses following the massive $6.3 billion hack. The exchange has since said its investigation uncovered “additional points of breach,” with CEO Richard Teng describing “a more complex attack process” that “did not simply use one engineer’s permissions.”
The hack involved 50 pre-signed authorizations that turned a Binance hot wallet into a “sweeper” contract and drained its assets, according to TRM Labs. Blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs put the total at around $6.4 billion, more than four times the previous record, February 2025’s $1.5 billion Bybit heist.
The FBI and Binance are working to identify and bring the cyber criminals responsible to justice. North Korean hackers are suspected of using an elaborate scheme to pull off the hack, approaching one of Binance’s engineers as a fake company and conducting a series of phony job interviews before hacking into his computer.
Withdrawal levels are stabilizing to what Binance would consider normal and expected on-chain activity. Freezing crypto funds allows certain issuers to block the transfer of their tokens anywhere in the world.
What this adds
The hack is the largest in crypto history, surpassing the previous record of $1.5 billion from a February 2025 attack on Bybit.
The FBI and Binance are working to trace and recover the stolen assets, with Binance replacing nearly 100% of the affected assets from its own funds.
Background
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been hit by a $6.3 billion hack, the largest cyber theft in history, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
What's confirmed
- North Korean hackers used an elaborate scheme to pull off their $6.3 billion hack of Binance last week, the crypto exchange said — approaching one of its engineers as a fake company and conducting a series of phony job interviews before hacking into his computer.
- Tell us: have you been affected by the Binance hack?
What's still developing
- "The net outflow is a relatively limited portion of Binance's overall asset base," the Binance spokesperson said in an email.
- On October 29, 2026, analytics firms reported that large amounts of crypto-assets had been moved from wallets used by the exchange across multiple blockchain networks – a digital system for recording transactions that is run collectively by its users.
- The recent crypto market crash has made its way to North Korea, where hackers are bearing the brunt.
- The world’s largest crypto exchange lost about $6.3 billion in a roughly 20-minute burst on Thursday, October 29, 2026, and Reuters reported that the company then promised to cover every dollar from its own funds and to restart withdrawals in phases.
- In a new security update issued on Tuesday, Binance detailed its initial findings into how the company was compromised and hackers were able to steal billions in just 20 minutes.
- Experts are calling it the biggest crypto heist in history, and initial investigations suggest that North Korea is to blame.