Binance Estimates $6.3 Billion Impact from Oct. 29 Security Incident, Pledges Full Coverage

• Binance estimates $6.3 billion total impact from a security incident on October 29
• Approximately $3 billion frozen on-chain; deposits and withdrawals temporarily suspended
• Exchange will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company funds; user funds remain safe
• Bitcoin fell below $77,000 and BNB dropped more than 7% amid the news
• Blockchain analytics firms attribute the incident to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group with high confidence

Binance estimated the total impact of a security incident on October 29 at around $6.3 billion, according to the exchange’s official announcement.

Initial investigations point to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that allowed an attacker to access a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. Binance stated it found no evidence of any wallet private key leak and will publish a detailed technical post-mortem once verified. The exchange has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks continue, revoked affected address authorizations, and is working with law enforcement and blockchain partners.

Binance co-CEO Yi He confirmed in a post on X that “User funds are safe. Binance will cover all hacking losses.” Coverage will come from the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company funds. The exchange has coordinated freezes of approximately $3 billion in affected assets on-chain, primarily stablecoins.

The incident triggered immediate market selling. The Block reported that Bitcoin slid below $77,000, with BNB dropping 7.1%, Ethereum falling 5.2%, and XRP declining 7%. Analysts noted about $1.5 billion in 24-hour liquidations, mostly long positions, amplifying pressure on major assets.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs calculated approximately $6.36 billion moved from Binance wallets across ten blockchains, most within about 20 minutes starting at 20:05 UTC. TRM attributed the attack to TraderTraitor, North Korea’s elite hacking unit linked to the Lazarus Group, with high confidence based on on- and off-chain patterns matching prior incidents including the $1.5 billion Bybit hack. Elliptic estimated $6.43 billion stolen across 11 chains, verifying $2.84 billion frozen, largely USDT and USDC.

The scale exceeds previous records and underscores ongoing risks to centralized exchange hot wallets, even as Binance emphasizes user protection and recovery efforts. Markets continue to monitor withdrawal resumption and further freezes.