By Ankur Banerjee, Rocky Swift, Summer Zhen and Elizabeth Howcroft
SINGAPORE/TOKYO/PARIS, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, in a theft that analysts have blamed on North Korea and which they say could be the biggest financial heist of all time.
Cryptocurrency prices fell on the news, while Binance halted withdrawals and said it would use company funds to cover losses. Stablecoin issuers, including El Salvador-based Tether and Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, have frozen 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 told Reuters.
“This was a complex attack, and we are doing everything possible in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it,” Binance said in an article on X.
The exchange said customer funds were safe and it was working with partners to freeze some of the affected assets, with around $3 billion located so far. It said earlier Friday that it planned to resume pickup services within the next 48 hours. He did not mention the status of the remaining $3.3 billion.
Binance said the company had set aside approximately $6.34 billion in funds internally to cover losses, without giving details on where the funds came from. The company has a $1 billion Bitcoin reserve fund designed to protect client assets in the event of security breaches, according to its website. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on X that the company owns SpaceX shares worth more than $1 billion.
The bulk of the heist happened in about 20 minutes starting Thursday evening and had similarities to previous large attacks blamed on North Korea, according to U.S. blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis.
TRM said the attackers were able to order Binance wallets to empty into wallets controlled by hackers, mirroring a 2025 heist on crypto exchange Bybit, which the FBI attributed to North Korea.
“TRM attributes the attack to … North Korea’s elite hacking unit,” the company said in an analysis posted on its website. TRM and Chainalysis said they were convinced that North Korea was responsible.
British blockchain analysts Elliptic also said they believed North Korea was behind the theft.
“This incident is almost certainly the largest known theft of any kind,” Elliptic said.
“THE BIGGEST HACK IN HISTORY”
North Korea has used state-linked cyber units for years for espionage, financial and revenue theft, according to U.S. and South Korean authorities as well as cybersecurity experts.
North Korea systematically denies this. Its mission in Geneva and embassy in China did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The US embassy in London said it had no comment on a possible investigation. The USSS did not respond to an emailed request for comment outside U.S. business hours.
The Abu Dhabi Financial Services Regulatory Authority, which issued Binance’s main operating license, said it was “engaging closely with Binance and monitoring the incident.”
“Your money is safe and we cover every loss,” Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said on X. “Our investigation has not assigned liability to anyone.”
“This is the biggest hack in history,” said Aravind Srinivasan of market maker GSR, as cryptocurrency prices fell broadly.
Bitcoin hit a six-week low of $76,368 and ether fell more than 3% to a two-month low of $2,178 before markets stabilized.
BNB, a token initially launched as Binance Coin that can be used to pay Binance fees, fell 5.3% in the past 24 hours to $699.54, according to CoinGecko, while fragile confidence hit listed crypto exchange stocks.
COMPROMISED LAPTOP
An initial investigation suggests the breach may have started with a hacked laptop belonging to one of Binance’s engineers, which allowed an attacker to access one of its systems and make unauthorized withdrawals, Binance said.
“Our security team traces the full path of the attack through the compromised computer which could be the entry point of the incident,” Binance said. The company later added that it had discovered additional points of violation.
Beyond the potential loss of assets, the security breach was likely to have broader ramifications for the crypto sector, which had already been under pressure due to rising U.S. interest rates and slowing buyer demand for exchange-traded funds, analysts said.
“This could further dampen risk appetite and prompt investors to reevaluate the safety of assets held on centralized exchanges,” said Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group.
HACK SIZE EXCEEDS BINANCE SECURE ASSET FUND
Binance, which allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets, has 335 million registered users worldwide and had approximately $162.8 billion in assets under custody according to its 2025 annual report.
Stablecoin issuer Tether said it had frozen nearly $1.57 billion in assets related to the incident, while Circle froze more than $800 million.
World Liberty Financial said it worked with custodian BitGo to freeze the funds, and Binance co-founder Yi He said $27 million in stablecoins and around $2 million in World Liberty tokens had been frozen. Crypto firm Ripple also froze around $200 million in funds, Yi said.
The incident joins a series of cryptocurrency thefts. Last year, attackers stole $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency in nearly 150 attacks, according to TRM Labs researchers.
In September, Bitget said around $350 million worth of cryptocurrencies had been stolen from its platform.
“The broader credit and industry implications will depend on ultimate losses, affected counterparties, asset recovery and, importantly, whether the incident will lead to broader disruption or loss of confidence in the digital asset ecosystem,” said Cristiano Ventricelli, vice president of digital assets at Moody’s Ratings.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook, Ankur Banerjee and Rae Wee in Singapore, Summer Zhen in Hong Kong, Rocky Swift in Tokyo, Vallari Srivastava and Anusha Shah in Bengaluru and Mrinmay Dey in Mexico, Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris and Tom Wilson in London; Writing by Scott Murdoch and Tom Westbrook. Editing by Stephen Coates, Mark Potter, Elisa Martinuzzi and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes)
