Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said hackers breached its systems late Thursday, October 29, affecting about $6.3 billion in assets. If the figure holds, it would be the largest crypto theft on record, far above the roughly $1.5 billion taken from the exchange Bybit in February 2025.
Binance suspended customer withdrawals. Co-CEO Richard Teng said on social media, "We are committed to covering all hacked losses through our company funds. Your assets are safe." Co-CEO Yi He said Friday that withdrawals should resume within 48 hours, and Teng said the service is being rebuilt and will not return until it passes rigorous testing. Binance maintains a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) of roughly $1 billion for such events. CNBC reported the company has since said it has set aside more than $6.3 billion of its own funds.
Binance said about $3 billion in assets has been frozen on-chain. Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoino, said it froze more than $1.567 billion of its USDT, and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said Circle froze another $800 million in coordination with law enforcement. World Liberty Financial said it froze $27 million of its USD1 stablecoin. TRM Labs, a blockchain research firm, put the haul at $6.36 billion across 10 blockchains, mostly moved in about 20 minutes. It estimated the attacker still holds about $2.4 billion in ether and bitcoin, which stablecoin issuers cannot freeze.
Teng said the attack was complex and not the work of one person. Initial findings pointed to a compromised laptop, which TechCentral reported belonged to a DevOps engineer, but further review revealed broader breaches. He said the attacker used a self-destruct mechanism that destroyed tooling and tracers. Binance said it has found no evidence that private keys were leaked. Foreign Policy reported that consumer accounts were not accessed, only corporate holdings.
TRM Labs attributed the attack with "high confidence" to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-sponsored group the FBI blamed for the Bybit theft. Binance has not named an attacker, saying it is working with law enforcement to identify the criminals, and as of October 30 no government had confirmed the attribution. CBS News said industry sources suspect North Korean involvement.
Markets reacted. Bitcoin fell about 5% to below $77,000 Friday, ether dropped about 4% to around $2,200, and BNB fell more than 6%. Shares of Circle, Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy traded lower. The breach follows an attack on the exchange Bitget in September, which lost about $388 million according to CNBC and TechCentral; Bitget first put the loss at $352 million.
