Binance says $6.3 billion stolen in record cryptocurrency heist
publishers 79articles 92first reported 29 Oct, 22:05 UTCdeveloping since 30 Oct · 3 editionstop 25 #4
Binance said hackers stole about $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from wallets used by the world’s largest crypto exchange, surpassing the $1.5 billion theft from Bybit in February 2025 as the biggest crypto heist on record.
Most of the assets were removed across 10 blockchain networks in about 20 minutes late Thursday, according to blockchain analytics firms. Binance suspended deposits and withdrawals while investigating. The exchange initially said a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop had allowed unauthorized withdrawal requests, but later said it had found additional points of breach. It said there was no evidence that wallet private keys had leaked.
Stablecoin issuers and other industry partners froze roughly $3 billion of the stolen assets. Estimates varied as tracing continued, with TRM Labs saying the attackers still controlled about $2.4 billion in bitcoin and ether. Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said customers’ assets were safe and that the company would cover losses using company resources and its user protection fund. Binance later said about 90% of the stolen cryptocurrency assets had been replenished.
TRM Labs attributed the attack with “high confidence” to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group linked to the Lazarus Group, citing transaction analysis and similarities to earlier operations. Chainalysis also linked the theft to North Korean hackers. Binance has not identified an attacker, and North Korea routinely denies involvement in cyberattacks. The FBI said it was coordinating with partners to assess the incident.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 5 with the publisher's own text; 8 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 42 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
- Publishers
- 79
- Source articles
- 92
- Given to the writer
- 8, 5 with the article's own text
- Independent newsrooms
- 8
- This version written
- 42 h after the record first saw the story
- Second model (editor)
- kept as written
- Publication gate
- passed
- Human review
- none
WHAT THE EDITOR DID
The second model checked the writer's draft against the same sources and published it as written.
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