Binance said on Thursday that its biggest-ever security breach affected $6.3 billion of digital assets, calling it the “largest hack in history.”
The world’s largest crypto exchange said other platforms helped it freeze about half of those assets. Binance said it will “cover all losses.”
Early checks suggest attackers compromised an engineer’s laptop, which let them make unauthorised withdrawals, Binance said. The hack surpasses the record $1.5bn theft from the Bybit exchange in 2025.
Investigations firm TRM Labs blamed a North Korean hacking unit called TraderTraitor. “We make this judgment with high confidence,” TRM said in a report. It said several elements of the attack resemble earlier North Korean-linked incidents, including the Bybit hack.
TRM’s chief policy officer, Ari Redbord, told the BBC the hack is a “watershed moment” unlike anything the industry has seen. He said the attacker still holds a huge amount of stolen assets, so efforts to trace and recover the money are far from over.
Binance did not directly answer media questions about a North Korea link. The company said: “We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.”
Binance co-chief executive Yi He thanked cryptocurrency issuers for freezing assets. “Safety first: withdrawals are currently disabled until the environment is confirmed to be secure,” she said.
Tether and Circle together froze about $2.4bn. Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, froze more than $800m. Chief executive Jeremy Allaire said the company is “closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance.”
Tether froze around $1.6bn. “Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority,” said chief executive Paolo Ardoino, whose company issues the USDT stablecoin.
The hack affects Binance.com. The smaller Binance.US, which serves American residents, said the issue does not affect its platform.
Several industry observers raised concerns about a possible hack hours before Binance confirmed the breach. Binance, founded in China in 2017, has an estimated 300 million registered users worldwide. The company said in 2024 that it held more than $160bn in assets under custody.
Bitcoin fell more than four percent after the alerts, while Ethereum and Solana also dropped sharply.
