- Binance estimates $6.3 billion was stolen in the largest crypto hack on record.
- The exchange has reserved $6.34 billion in company funds to cover all user losses.
- Industry partners including Tether and Circle have frozen roughly $3 billion in stolen assets.
- Blockchain analytics firms attribute the attack to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has set aside more than $6.34 billion in company resources to restore customer balances after attackers stole an estimated $6.3 billion in what blockchain investigators describe as the largest crypto heist in history, according to The Block and CoinDesk.
The bulk of the theft unfolded over roughly 20 minutes late on October 29, 2026, with funds drained from Binance hot wallets across multiple blockchains, as detailed in a Reuters report. Binance co-CEO Richard Teng stated that a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop allowed unauthorized withdrawal transactions, though the investigation has since identified additional points of breach and found no evidence of private key leaks, per Decrypt.
Teng affirmed that “Your money is safe, and we’re covering every loss,” as the exchange holds about $5 billion of the reserved funds in the exact affected tokens and is purchasing the remainder through markets and over-the-counter channels. Roughly $3 billion in stolen assets has been frozen by partners including Tether, which locked more than $1.56 billion in USDT, and Circle, which froze hundreds of millions in USDC, according to Cointelegraph coverage.
Analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis have attributed the attack with high confidence to TraderTraitor, a North Korean unit linked to the Lazarus Group and previously connected to the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025. The stolen haul included approximately 18,270 bitcoin, which the attacker split across 19 wallets that have not moved since the theft. Withdrawals remain suspended while Binance rebuilds and tests its infrastructure, with a target to resume by Sunday, November 1, 2026. Bitcoin traded near $77,000 amid the news, with crypto liquidations exceeding $1.5 billion.
The incident has prompted calls for stronger regulation, with President Trump noting that officials are looking into the hack as Binance works to ensure customers are made whole. Binance plans to publish an updated proof of reserves to verify that all user funds are covered.
